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height="1.4986111111111111in"}

U.S. ATLAS PROJECT OFFICE

**Physics Department**

**UPTON, NEW YORK 11973**

July 7, 2006

Dr. Thomas Ferbel

SC-25/Germantown Building\
U.S. Department of Energy\
1000 Independence Avenue, SW\
Washington, D.C. 20585-1290 

Dr. Peter Bond

Associate Laboratory Director

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Upton, NY 11973

SUBJECT: U.S. ATLAS Research Program Quarterly Status Report

Dear Sirs:

Attached please find U.S. ATLAS Research Program Quarterly Status Report
No. 7 for the period January-March 2006.

![](media/image2.png){width="1.9in" height="0.5791666666666667in"}
Sincerely yours,

Howard A. Gordon

U.S. ATLAS Deputy Research Program Manager

Head, U.S. ATLAS Project Office

[Distribution]{.underline}:

Abolins, M.

Alam, S.

Aronson, S.

Baker, K.

Barnett, M.

Bensinger, J.

Blair, R.

Brau, J.

Butehorn, C.

Byon-Wagner, A.

Carolan, P. - DOE

Cleland, W.

Coles, M. -- NSF

Crawford, G. - DOE

De, K.

Dodd, J.

Ernst, R.

Errede, S.

Feldman, G.

Ferbel, T. - DOE

Gilchriese, M.

Goldberg, M. -- NSF

Grillo, A.

Harrison, M. -- PAP

Hinchliffe, I.

Huth, J.

Kagan, H.

Kane, S.

Kirby, D.

Kogut, J. - DOE

Lankford, A.

Larsen, R. - PAP

Lissauer, D.

Lubatti, H.

Mantsch, P. -- PAP

McFarlane, K.

Meyers, P. -- PAP

Neal, H.

Nemethy, P

Ogren, H.

Oh, S.

Parsons, J.

Pilcher, J.

Polychronakos, V.

Price, L.

Pripstein, M. -- NSF

Rizatdinova, F.

Rijssenbeek, M.

Rutherfoord, J.

Seiden, A.

Seidel, S.

Shank, J.

Shochet, M.

Skubic, P.

Sliwa, K.

Stroynowski, R.

Su, D.

Taylor, F.

Tuts, M.

Whitaker, S.

Willocq, S.

Wolbers, S. - PAP

Williams, H.

Willis, W.

Wu, S.L.

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="2.5527777777777776in"
height="4.250694444444444in"}

**research program STATUS REPORT NO. 7**

**REPORTING PERIOD**

**January-March 2006**

Table of Contents

[1. Executive Associate Project Manager's Summary (J. Shank, BU)
4](#executive-associate-project-managers-summary-j.-shank-bu)

[2. Technical Progress Reports 4](#technical-progress-reports)

[2.2 Software 4](#software)

[2.3 Facilities 19](#facilities)

[3.1 M&O Silicon 27](#mo-silicon)

[3.2 M&O TRT 30](#mo-trt)

[3.3 M&O Liquid Argon 31](#mo-liquid-argon)

[3.4 M&O Tile 38](#mo-tile)

[3.5 M&O Muon 42](#mo-muon)

[3.6 M&O Trigger 44](#mo-trigger)

4.1 Inner Detector Upgrade R&D 50

4.3 Liquid Argon Upgrade R&D 59

[3. Financial Report (Chuck Butehorn, BNL)
62](#financial-report-chuck-butehorn-bnl)

#   {#section .unnumbered}

#  {#section-1 .unnumbered}

# Executive Associate Project Manager's Summary (J. Shank, BU)

The computing effort for this quarter was focused on the Computing
System Commissioning (CSC) exercises. In the core software development
are this meant getting release 12.0.0 out. This release had new
functionality in data management areas such as conditions database, but
the dominant effort was in upgrading the data management software to
ROOT5. This was substantially more work than anticipated and required
the concentration of all the core and Data management software experts.
This work delayed released 12.0.0 and made for a rocky start to the CSC.
The CSC simulation production did start using the continuously updated
PanDA system. PanDA was deployed at a large scale at all the T1/T2 sites
in the US and no real scaling limits were hit. In addition, we had an
internal review of PanDA this quarter. This review was useful in
identifying areas that needed further work and in the dropping of our
DIAL software development as a separate product, but to incorporate some
of the DIAL

technology directly into PanDA.\
\
Major ramp-up of the facilities capacity was carried out at the T1 and
T2 centers during this quarter in order to match the CSC requirements.

# Technical Progress Reports

## 2.2 Software {#software .unnumbered}

**2.2 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary**

**Srini Rajagopalan (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Release 12.0.0 for         15-Mar-06      30-Apr-06        30-May-06      Delayed (See #1)
  commissioning                                                             

  Software available for DC3 15-Mar-06      15-Mar-06        30-May-06      Delayed (See #2)

  Release 12.0.x validated   30-Aug-06      \[New\]          30-Aug-06      On Schedule
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Release 12 has been delayed to end of April with bug fixes
releases expected to come out in May 2006.

**Note #2**  This is now part of Release 12, including the software
allowing simulation with realistic geometry (as-built) and
reconstruction for studies toward CSC notes. The expected release date
has been delayed from numerous problems - mostly persistency problems
with new version of ROOT to end of May.

**Srini Rajagopalan (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

ATLAS continues to mature its software in readiness for several upcoming
commissioning exercises, designed to stress test the software components
and ensures its readiness for LHC startup. Release 12.0.0 was a
significant milestone in the process adding components of realistic
(as-built) simulation that will be used for production and studies in
the coming months. The realistic effects include incorporation of
realistic dead material and misaligned geometries as gained during the
detector installation experience.

Release 12 also included a migration to new core software, in particular
migrating to ROOT5. This migration was painful with persistency not
supported as well as with ROOT4. This has caused Release 12 to now be
delayed to the next quarter.

Within the U.S., there was a major reshuffling of the distributed data
management activities around the recently initiated PanDA project. PanDA
has now been in development for six months and the U.S. established a
review to ensure that this project is in the path toward success. The
review committee included David Malon (ANL), Paolo Calafiura (LBL), Kyle
Cranmer (BNL), Shawn McKee (Michigan) and Dietrich Liko (CERN). Dietrich
is also responsible for the ATLAS Distributed analysis software
development. The major outcome of the review was to terminate the
ongoing development of DIAL as the tool for distributed software and
enhance the focus on PANDA to develop and deploy the suite of tools
necessary for both production and distributed analysis.

In the application software, Dieter Best\'s contract at Indiana was
terminated and a replacement for Dieter has been found - due to begin
the next quarter. The replacement will also focus on development the
expertise in tracking software.

**2.2.1 Coordination**

**2.2.2 Core Services**

**Paolo Calafiura (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

The focus of work during this quarter was preparation for release 12. In
particular US ATLAS core developers worked on ROOT 5 migration, a new
cleaner implementation of DataVector and DataList, a new generation of
python-based job transformation, as well as porting the core software
packages to gcc 3.4.4. Other important accomplishments were in the Gaudi
error reporting and error handling service and in preparing the
migration to the use of python module and auto-generated Configurable
for job configuration.

**2.2.2.1 Framework**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Integration of Seal        14-Nov-05      \--              14-May-06      Delayed (See #1)
  plug-in Mechanism                                                         

  port of Gaudi and Control  1-Feb-06       \--              1-Feb-06       Completed
  to gcc 3.4.4                                                              

  python-accessible Property 1-Feb-06       1-Feb-06         1-Jun-06       Delayed (See #2)
  Repository                                                                

  Full chain and Interactive 8-Feb-06       \--              8-Feb-06       Completed (See
  Tutorials                                                                 #3)

  use GaudiPython to provide 8-Feb-06       8-Feb-06         8-Sep-06       Delayed (See #4)
  interactive access to                                                     
  (selected) framework                                                      
  functionality                                                             

  High-level job             14-Feb-06      14-Feb-06        14-Jun-06      Delayed (See #5)
  configuration design and                                                  
  tools                                                                     

  History & Property Mech    14-Feb-06      14-Feb-06        14-Jun-06      Delayed (See #6)
  Integ                                                                     

  Review ATLAS software      1-Mar-06       \--              1-Mar-06       Delayed (See #7)
  documentation/workbook                                                    
  (Indiana)                                                                 

  flexible job               1-Jun-06       \--              1-Jun-06       On Schedule
  reinitialization                                                          

  port Gaudi and Control to  1-Jul-06       \--              1-Jul-06       On Schedule
  64-bit architectures                                                      

  Review ATLAS Python        1-Sep-06       \--              1-Sep-06       On Schedule
  Scripts for usability                                                     
  (Indiana)                                                                 

  common online/offline      31-Dec-06      \--              31-Dec-06      On Schedule (See
  error reporting/handling                                                  #8)
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  awaits for the integration of ROOT5 in athena

**Note #2**  basic functionality delivered. Now needs to be deployed and
adapted according to users needs

**Note #3**  needs revision when migrating to project builds

**Note #4-5**  lack of manpower

**Note #6**  awaits history persistency

**Note #7**  awaits new hire

**Note #8**  new Gaudi error handling service mimics and perhaps
improves upon online requirements

**2.2.2.2 EDM Infrastructure**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Integration with           31-Dec-05      31-Dec-05        6-Sep-06       Delayed (See #1)
  POOL-Cache Manager                                                        

  Support for History        14-Feb-06      14-Feb-06        14-Jun-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Objects                                                                   

  evaluate the need of       14-Sep-06      \--              14-Sep-06      On Schedule
  object aliases and                                                        
  versioning in StoreGate                                                   

  Integrate CLID Database    14-Sep-06      \--              14-Sep-06      On Schedule
  Generation                                                                

  support DataLinks across   23-Sep-06      \--              23-Sep-06      On Schedule
  different stores                                                          

  Prototype Support for      30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  Integer Keys                                                              

  update DataList, evaluate  1-Dec-06       \--              1-Dec-06       On Schedule (See
  DataMap and association                                                   #3)
  objects                                                                   
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  low priority

**Note #2**  prototyped persistency using pickle. POOL needs
Transient/Persistent separation

**Note #3**  DataList done

**2.2.2.3 Detector Description**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  All Identifiers in DD      1-Oct-05       1-Jun-06         1-Jan-06       Completed (See
  database                                                                  #1)

  DC3 Detector Description   1-Jan-06       1-Jan-06         1-Oct-06       Delayed (See #2)
  Quality Control Tests                                                     
  Passed                                                                    

  All numbers in DB. All     1-Mar-06       1-Mar-06         1-Sep-06       Delayed (See #3)
  file-based info removed                                                   
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  CPU/Memory Optimization    1-May-06       1-May-06         1-Jul-06       Delayed (See #4)
  Effort Final Report (Pitt)                                                

  Initialization time        1-May-06       1-May-06         1-Jul-06       Delayed (See #5)
  performance study                                                         

  Validation procedures      1-Jun-06       1-Jun-06         1-Oct-06       Delayed (See #6)
  established for DD                                                        
  versions (Pitt)                                                           

  Database preemption system 1-Sep-06       \--              1-Sep-06       On Schedule
  delivery date (Pitt)                                                      

  Geometry Database          1-Sep-06       \--              1-Sep-06       On Schedule
  overrides                                                                 
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  We have now put the ID Dict file names in the DD database
and are using that as a means of synchronizing ID dict to version. It is
not as strong as what we ultimately hope to achieve (data lives in the
database); but this has moved to lower priority (than LAR detector
description).

**Note #2-3**  Delayed due to the press of LAr Detector Description
issues.

**Note #4**  Nearly done. The LAr Readout geometry was identified as a
significant memory consumer and we have nearly fixed this. We must now
get this accepted by the LAr group. Pending this, we will write the
report on memory and CPU consumption during initialization.

**Note #5**  Nearly done; see note 1.

**Note #6**  Delayed due to the press of LAr Detector Description
issues.

**Joe Boudreau (University of Pittsburgh)**

We spent the last quarter in maintenance of the LAr Detector Description
and the LAr Simulation.

Recently we have done a major study to improve the LAr Detector
Description. The analysis and design is essentially done and the
implementation has been carried out as well, so now it will be presented
and hopefully accepted. The main idea is to assure a tight coupling of
readout geometry and material geometry, all under version control. We
insert a layer of realistic description of readout geometry between the
database and the idealized abstractions that apply to the calorimeter as
a whole. This supports misalignments in a way which is far less
cumbersome than the existing system (LArDetDescr) which does not really
even use GeoModel, at least, not as intended (by us).

Three test beam setups (H6 emec-only, H6 emec-hec, H6 fcal) have been
fully integrated with Athena and are now being used for testbeam
analysis. Readout geometry has been applied to these systems as well
now.

We have performed some initial tests for putting HV imperfection maps of
LAr EM barrel and endcap into COOL Conditions database using two
mechanisms for payload data storage - pool.root files and relational
database. The long term strategy is yet to be defined.

It is our responsibility to coordinate the ATLAS DB Release which is
becoming an essential part of ATLAS s/w releases starting from 12.0.0,
the work on integrating default DB releases into distribution kits is
ongoing.

Miscellany:

\* Duplication of LArHit collection in simulation is suppressed.

\* Digitization was tried successfully with automatic geometry
configuration.

**2.2.2.4 Graphics**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Configuration Presets      1-Sep-06       \--              1-Sep-06       On Schedule
  available in v-atlas                                                      
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.2.2.5 Analysis Tools**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  access ATLAS Data from     8-Feb-06       8-Feb-06         8-Sep-06       Delayed (See #1)
  python                                                                    

  access c++ classes from    8-Feb-06       \--              8-Feb-06       Completed
  python                                                                    

  runtime                    15-Sep-06      \--              15-Sep-06      On Schedule
  recompilation/reloading                                                   

  automatic generation of    31-Dec-06      \--              31-Dec-06      On Schedule
  transformations                                                           
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  needs revisiting after ROOT5 migration

**2.2.2.6 Grid Integration**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Job Transformations in     14-Feb-06      14-Feb-06        14-Jun-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Python                                                                    

  error recovery in athena   15-Jun-06      \--              15-Jun-06      On Schedule

  Prototype Implementation   30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  for Grid Monitoring                                                       
  Architecture                                                              

  extract job metadata from  15-Dec-06      \--              15-Dec-06      On Schedule
  athena                                                                    

  Improve message formatting 15-Dec-06      \--              15-Dec-06      On Schedule
  and filtering                                                             
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  infrastructure ready. Needs to be deployed in release 12
preproduction

**2.2.2.7 Core Service Usability**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  add and use help string to 18-Feb-06      18-Feb-06        18-Jun-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Gaudi Property                                                            

  Configurable-based job     1-May-06       \--              1-May-06       On Schedule
  configuration                                                             

  provide job-level          1-May-06       \--              1-May-06       On Schedule
  properties a la SimFlags                                                  

  Integrated athena          31-Dec-06      \--              31-Dec-06      On Schedule
  configuration and                                                         
  development environment                                                   

  Job Configuration          31-Dec-06      \--              31-Dec-06      On Schedule
  editor/browser/debugger                                                   
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  developer in charge left. Help string handling added in
Gaudi. Need to develop tools to use it.

**2.2.3 Data Management**

**David Malon (ANL)**

A painful migration to ROOT5 and new associated dictionary
infrastructure was undertaken and largely completed in this reporting
period. The experience underscored the need for implementation of a
transient/persistent separation model, and convinced many developers and
software domain coordinators that ATLAS should not delay this transition
any further.

The period saw an increasing shift toward readiness for commissioning.
The greatest risk to database and event store deliverables in the coming
year may come from the lateness of other components of ATLAS
infrastructure, and especially the lack of trigger-related information
in offline commissioning exercises. These and other late-arriving
considerations (such as support for luminosity blocks and sufficient
provenance management to allow cross section calculations) will likely
lead to substantial pressure for rapid major development by the U.S.
team in the latter half of 2006 and in 2007.

**2.2.3.1 Database Services and Servers**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  User-level documentation   27-Mar-06      \--              27-Mar-06      Completed
  for access to database                                                    
  services                                                                  

  Database release model     30-Jun-06      \[New\]          30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  decoupled from software                                                   
  release                                                                   

  Completion of FroNTier     1-Sep-06       \[New\]          1-Sep-06       On Schedule
  (data caching technology)                                                 
  testing                                                                   

  LCG 3D service deployment  1-Nov-06       \[New\]          1-Nov-06       On Schedule
  at U.S. ATLAS Tier 1                                                      
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.2.3.2 Common Data Mgmt Software**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Support for Placement      7-Nov-05       \--              7-Aug-06       Delayed (See #1)
  Control                                                                   

  Support for Multiple       14-Nov-05      \--              22-May-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Transaction Contexts                                                      

  Technology evaluation and  27-Feb-06      \--              27-Feb-06      Completed
  selection for DDM catalogs                                                

  User-level documentation   27-Mar-06      27-Mar-06        17-Jul-06      Delayed (See #3)
  for Athena I/O                                                            
  infrastructure                                                            

  Transient/persistent       3-Apr-06       \--              3-Apr-06       On Schedule
  separation of DataHeader                                                  

  ROOT5/Reflex integration   24-Apr-06      \[New\]          24-Apr-06      On Schedule

  Transient/persistent       24-Apr-06      \[New\]          24-Apr-06      On Schedule
  separation of EventInfo                                                   
  and TriggerInfo                                                           

  Refactorization of         11-Sep-06      \[New\]          11-Sep-06      On Schedule
  persistence packages and                                                  
  services                                                                  
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  December 2005: Agreement with ATLAS software management is
to postpone this milestone until it is specifically requested or
required by physics.

**Note #2**  December 2005: A limited version will be introduced into
early 2006 releases, but a more general strategy awaits the outcome of a
spring 2006 event store developers workshop.

**Note #3**  31 March 2006: Partially complete; completion pending
documentation of Release 12 infrastructure, which was delayed by
international ATLAS.

**2.2.3.3 Event Store**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Job-level history object   2-Oct-05       \--              7-Aug-06       Delayed (See #1)
  and configuration                                                         
  persistence prototype                                                     

  Schema evolution           27-Jan-06      \--              27-Jan-06      Completed
  infrastructure prototype                                                  
  based upon                                                                
  transient/persistent                                                      
  separation                                                                

  Unique EDO Identification  31-Jan-06      31-Jan-06        25-Sep-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Infrastructure                                                            

  Athena interface to        27-Feb-06      \--              27-Feb-06      Completed
  set/get                                                                   
  technology-specific                                                       
  attributes (POOL)                                                         

  Infrastructure to support  27-Mar-06      27-Mar-06        25-Sep-06      Delayed (See #3)
  stream- and run-level                                                     
  metadata                                                                  

  Transient/persistent       1-May-06       \--              1-May-06       On Schedule
  separation of StoreGate                                                   
  support classes for EDM                                                   

  Event selector with        22-May-06      \--              22-May-06      On Schedule
  scope-based retrieval                                                     
  support                                                                   

  File/dataset association   22-May-06      \--              22-May-06      On Schedule (See
  machinery                                                                 #4)

  Strategy for run-level,    22-May-06      22-May-06        25-Sep-06      Delayed (See #5)
  stream-level, file-level                                                  
  metadata                                                                  

  Back navigation support    7-Aug-06       \--              7-Aug-06       On Schedule
  for bytestream data                                                       

  Event store components for 25-Sep-06      \[New\]          25-Sep-06      On Schedule
  streaming studies                                                         
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  30 September 2005: Actual delivery may be later in the
quarter because the prototype requires new versions of LCG dictionary
software that will not be delivered to us until later in the quarter.
December 2005: This milestone must be delayed until some time after the
corresponding control framework history infrastructure is in place.

**Note #2**  31 March 2006: Delayed pending outcome of May 2006 Physics
Analysis Tools workshop.

**Note #3**  31 March 2006: Delayed pending proposed ATLAS metadata task
force.

**Note #4**  31 March 2006: We have enlisted the Glasgow group to
contribute to this milestone.

**Note #5**  31 March 2006: Delayed pending proposed ATLAS metadata task
force.

**2.2.3.4 Non-Event Data Management**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  DDM support for tile       13-Mar-06      \--              13-Mar-06      Completed
  commissioning data                                                        

  Maintain NOVA for use by   1-Jul-06       \--              1-Jul-06       On Schedule
  LAr calorimeter until COOL                                                
  transition is complete                                                    
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.2.3.5 Collections, Catalogs, Metadata**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Athena                     19-Dec-05      \--              24-Jul-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Interface/Read/Write                                                      
  Access to Collection-Level                                                
  Metadata                                                                  

  Integration of Collection  19-Dec-05      \--              24-Jul-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Support & Bookkeeping                                                     

  Tag database               16-Jan-06      \--              16-Jan-06      Completed
  infrastructure for Tier0                                                  
  scaling tests                                                             

  Evaluation of strategies   27-Feb-06      27-Feb-06        25-Sep-06      Delayed (See #3)
  for support of                                                            
  variable-length structures                                                
  in tags                                                                   

  Transition POOL            17-Apr-06      17-Apr-06        7-Aug-06       Delayed (See #4)
  collections to CORAL                                                      
  AttributeLists and                                                        
  component library model                                                   

  Support extensible         22-May-06      22-May-06        7-Aug-06       Delayed (See #5)
  collections, and                                                          
  collection reblocking                                                     

  Tag test integration into  19-Jun-06      \[New\]          19-Jun-06      On Schedule
  Service Challenge 4                                                       

  Integration and support of 25-Sep-06      \--              25-Sep-06      On Schedule
  event-level metadata in                                                   
  commissioning tests                                                       
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1** **-2** December 2005: Redesign is pending a Spring 2006
event store developers workshop. An underlying component (AMI, from
Grenoble) is behind schedule.

**Note #3**  31 March 2006: Delayed pending LCG major POOL collections
infrastructure changes.

**Note #4-5**  31 March 2006: The revised LCG schedule calls for
delivery of this functionality, along with major POOL collections
infrastructure changes, in August 2006.

**2.2.3.6 Distributed Data Management**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Bulk transfer tests based  31-Mar-06      \--              31-Mar-06      Completed (See
  upon realistic T0-\>T1                                                    #1)
  model                                                                     

  Deployment of SC4 version  31-Mar-06      \--              31-Mar-06      Completed (See
  of DDM infrastructure on                                                  #2)
  Tier 1s                                                                   

  Initial tests of DDM in    17-Apr-06      \--              17-Apr-06      On Schedule (See
  distributed analysis chain                                                #3)

  DDM 0.2 on all Tier 1s     10-Jun-06      \[New\]          10-Jun-06      On Schedule

  DDM support for LAr        15-Jun-06      \[New\]          15-Jun-06      On Schedule (See
  commissioning data                                                        #4)
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  T1-\>T1 also tested (BNL/Lyon)

**Note #2**  Deployment completed on 5 Tier1s. A June milestone extends
this work to a later DDM version, and to all Tier1s.

**Note #3**  31 March 2006: DDM deployment is on schedule; distributed
analysis components may not come until June

**Note #4**  Includes automatic procedure to define, populate, and
transfer LAr datasets

**2.2.3.7 Data Access Support**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Database representation on 30-Jan-06      \--              30-Jan-06      Completed (See
  U.S. ATLAS Analysis                                                       #1)
  Support Group                                                             

  Provide database expertise 1-Apr-07       \[New\]          1-Apr-07       On Schedule
  as part of U.S. ATLAS                                                     
  Analysis Support Group                                                    
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Jack Cranshaw is the current U.S. ATLAS Analysis Support
Group database liaison.

**2.2.4 Distributed Software**

**2.2.4.1 Distributed Analysis**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Physics data access tools  9-Jan-06       \[New\]          9-Jan-06       Completed (See
                                                                            #1)

  Distributed analysis       15-Feb-06      \[New\]          15-Feb-06      Completed (See
  benchmarks for DIAL and                                                   #2)
  PanDA                                                                     

  PanDA/distributed analysis 8-Mar-06       \[New\]          8-Mar-06       Completed (See
  review                                                                    #3)

  Decide relative roles of   15-Mar-06      \[New\]          15-Mar-06      Completed (See
  PanDA and DIAL for DA                                                     #4)
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Deliver physics data access tools for US and ATLAS
physicists, integrated with the ATLAS distributed data management system
DQ2. Data retrieval, search, and web browsing tools.

**Note #2**  System for benchmarking different distributed analysis
systems and job processing back ends, including DIAL and PanDA, together
with first measurements of PanDA performance for analysis.

**Note #3**  Review PanDA and its application for distributed analysis,
the DIAL distributed analysis system and its integration with PanDA, and
the needs/expectations of users, to guide future planning and
development.

**Note #4**  In light of review outcomes, decide what roles PanDA and
DIAL will have for DA in the US. The decision was taken to discontinue
the development of DIAL and focus on PanDA for the delivery of DA
capability.

**Torre Wenaus (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

During the quarter PanDA and DIAL based distributed analysis tools were
routinely available. PanDA performance for DA was poor, however, because
resources were saturated with production and effective strategies for
DA/production resource sharing were not yet in place (expected next
quarter). DA benchmarking was implemented in DIAL, and used to compare
performance of PanDA-based analysis relative to batch queue submission
via DIAL. PanDA job latencies were long due to PanDA\'s use of saturated
production resources.

A PanDA/DA review was held in March. Its charge included examining PanDA
for distributed analysis (as well as production), the role of DIAL and
its integration with PanDA, and the needs/expectations of users. The
review outcome guided the decision thereafter to discontinue the
development of DIAL and focus on PanDA as the basis for DA in the US
(and potentially outside the US also).

The quarter also saw the full deployment and broad take-up of physics
data access tools for end-users, enabling data search/retrieval over the
grid and web-based browsing. The tools are fully integrated with the
ATLAS data management system DQ2.

**2.2.4.2 Production System**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Achieve \<10% production   31-Jan-06      \[New\]          31-Jan-06      Completed (See
  error rate due to PanDA                                                   #1)

  PanDA migration to ATLAS   10-Feb-06      \[New\]          10-Feb-06      Completed (See
  production DQ2                                                            #2)

  PanDA production           20-Feb-06      \[New\]          20-Feb-06      Completed (See
  scalability test                                                          #3)

  Active disk space          28-Feb-06      \[New\]          28-Feb-06      Completed (See
  management                                                                #4)

  PanDA deployment at        15-Mar-06      \[New\]          15-Mar-06      Completed
  Indiana U                                                                 
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Completed several weeks ahead of schedule. Typical error
rates \~5% at end Jan.

**Note #2**  Migrate PanDA to the ATLAS-wide production instance of the
DQ2 data management system at CERN. Completed smoothly in one day, with
very good results on using a transatlantic DDM system for PanDA.

**Note #3**  Deliver maximal number of ATLAS production jobs the
production system and US resources scale will permit, and examine PanDA
performance and scalability. Done, with 11k jobs processed in 1 day with
2% error rate, and no scaling limits seen. This is \~4x the scaling
limit of the previous system.

**Note #4**  Temporary in-house tools for active disk space management
(cleanup at high water mark, volume rotation) implemented, pending
delivery of DQ2 version supporting space management (expected next
quarter).

**Torre Wenaus (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

The PanDA production system had an active and successful quarter, its
first full quarter in production, both in terms of production usage and
ongoing development. It consistently demonstrated production operations
requirements far lower (about half) than the previous US system and
other current ATLAS systems. In a scaling exercise during ongoing
production, PanDA processed 11k jobs in a day, with no scaling limits
seen (or expected). This is \~4x the scaling limit seen with the
previous system. Panda error rates were low, with a \<10% target
achieved early and a typical level of \~2-3% achieved by the end of the
quarter, ahead of our expectations. Indiana U was added as a PanDA site,
and integration work was underway for Teragrid and SLAC. PanDA
development saw many functional enhancements in brokerage, data
handling, pilot jobs and monitoring.

**2.2.4.3 Production Support**

**Torre Wenaus (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

Production support continued to be an integral part of the production
system, distributed analysis and distributed data management efforts,
with all participants in those programs contributing to production
support (and constituting the full production support effort). No
specific production support milestones were called out in this quarter,
it is an ongoing activity. Development activities have been successful
thus far in providing automation and information discovery/tracking
extensive enough to keep production support/operations manpower
requirements low and manageable.

**2.2.5 Application Software**

**Frederic Luehring (Indiana University)**

For the January to March quarter, work continued in the generator,
calorimeter, muon, and monitoring areas. For the tracking area a
personal change was in process.

**2.2.5.1 Generator Support**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  First version of EvtGen    11-Apr-06      \--              11-Apr-06      On Schedule
  interface for inclusive                                                   
  decays with Pythia and                                                    
  Herwig                                                                    

  Migrate to Herwig 6.510    11-Apr-06      11-Apr-06        31-Mar-06      Completed

  Migrate to Pythia 6.326    11-Apr-06      11-Apr-06        31-Mar-06      Completed

  Migration of production    30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  scripts to python                                                         

  Customized persistency for 5-Jul-06       \--              5-Jul-06       On Schedule
  HepMC                                                                     

  Evaluation of migration of 5-Jul-06       \--              5-Jul-06       On Schedule
  Sherpa into atlas releases                                                

  First version of enforced  5-Jul-06       \--              5-Jul-06       On Schedule
  consistency of masses                                                     
  among all generators                                                      

  Herwig++ available and     5-Jul-06       \--              5-Jul-06       On Schedule
  integrated                                                                

  Validated version of       5-Jul-06       \--              5-Jul-06       On Schedule
  EvtGen interface for                                                      
  inclusive decays with                                                     
  Pythia and Herwig                                                         
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Frederic Luehring (Indiana University)**

ATLAS/Genser interface was updated to the latest version of the latter
(1_3_0). At the same time the ATLAS interfaces of Pythia, Herwig, Lhapdf
and Cascade were updated to the latest versions, 6.326, 6.510, 5.0.0,
and 1.3.0 respectively. This version migration triggered an extensive
validation process for the generators above, which involved the fix of
several bugs in the code.

Assistance was provided to other Generators developers which resulted to
the release of two new generator interfaces for ATLAS, one for
Charybdis, and one for Dpemc.

The ATLAS CSC event generation production continued during that time,
and several software tools were developed/debugged for supporting this
production process.

Extensive interactions with the ATLAS user community took place,
supporting them on their physics analysis tasks.

**2.2.5.2 Tracking Infrastructure**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Understand existing        1-Aug-06       1-Aug-06         1-Oct-06       Delayed (See #1)
  b-tagging software.                                                       
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Best\'s replacement (Jain) is unable to start until August
1.

**Frederic Luehring (Indiana University)**

Best\'s contract was terminated effective March 31, 2006. A search was
undertaken to replace Best. This position was filled after the end of
this quarter.

**2.2.5.3 Calorimeter Infrastructure**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  clean-up of CaloCluster    11-Apr-06      11-Apr-06        31-Oct-06      Delayed (See #1)
  class & new fast CaloTower                                                
  implementation                                                            

  move cluster corrections   11-Apr-06      11-Apr-06        31-Mar-06      Completed
  into database, provide                                                    
  software framework for                                                    
  fill/retrieval                                                            

  move hadronic calibration  3-May-06       \--              3-May-06       On Schedule
  parameters into database                                                  

  improvement of Navigation  5-Jul-06       5-Jul-06         31-Oct-06      Delayed (See #2)
  package wrt performance                                                   
  and storage requirements                                                  

  investigate data           5-Jul-06       6-Dec-06         31-Oct-06      Delayed (See #3)
  compression for                                                           
  CaloCluster                                                               

  fast CaloTower             1-Aug-06       \[New\]          1-Aug-06       On Schedule
  implementation                                                            

  implementation of new EDM  31-Oct-06      \[New\]          31-Oct-06      On Schedule
  for navigable                                                             
  four-momentum typed                                                       
  objects                                                                   

  testbeam converter support 31-Oct-06      \[New\]          31-Oct-06      On Schedule

  use of conditioning data   6-Dec-06       \--              6-Dec-06       On Schedule
  in reconstruction and                                                     
  simulations, esp.                                                         
  validation of                                                             
  \"realistic\" calo.                                                       

  conversion/transport of    1-Jan-07       \[New\]          1-Jan-07       On Schedule
  mySQL etc. testbeam                                                       
  conditions database to                                                    
  COOL                                                                      

  optimizations for          1-Jan-07       \[New\]          1-Jan-07       On Schedule
  commissioning/ATLAS data                                                  
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Delayed to release 13.0.0.

**Note #2**  Release 13.0.0 is delayed to 26-Sep-06.

**Note #3**  Release 13.0.0 is delayed and so is this milestone.

**Frederic Luehring (Indiana University)**

Lampl has provided the reconstruction parameter versioning for
CaloCluster corrections for release 12, in collaboration with BNL. In
parallel he provided support for testbeam data converters (significant
clean-up for FCal2004 and combined H6/H8 testbeams 2005), and started
the design work to provide versioning for hadronic calibration
constants, in collaboration with MPI. He also started to look into the
conversion of the testbeam conditions database from mySQL to COOL. In
addition he helps the USATLAS community with questions regarding
electron/photon reconstruction and simulation software, as a member of
the Analysis Support Group.

**2.2.5.4 Muon Infrastructure**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Implement and Test new EDM 28-Apr-06      \--              28-Apr-06      On Schedule
  for Muon reconstruction                                                   
  for 12.0.0                                                                

  Implement and Test new EDM 12-Jul-06      12-Jul-06        26-Sep-06      Delayed (See #1)
  for Muon reconstruction                                                   
  for 13.0.0                                                                

  Implement and Test Truth   12-Jul-06      12-Jul-06        26-Sep-06      Delayed (See #2)
  EDM for 13.0.0                                                            

  Improve documentation of   31-Jul-06      \[New\]          31-Jul-06      On Schedule
  EDM packages                                                              

  Finalise EDM design, and   26-Sep-06      \[New\]          26-Sep-06      On Schedule
  work on transient /                                                       
  persistent separation for                                                 
  13.0.0                                                                    

  Integration of new muon    26-Sep-06      \[New\]          26-Sep-06      On Schedule
  reconstruction packages                                                   
  for 13.0.0                                                                
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1-2**  This item is delayed because release 13.0.0 is delayed
until September.

**Frederic Luehring (Indiana University)**

The Event Data Model (EDM) has been updated for release 12.0.0, and in
particular there have been some changes to get persistency working. For
the raw data objects, we have introduced a \"transient/persistent\"
split, which both reduces the size on disk, and provides a mechanism for
reading old data. In a bid to make the code more accessible to
newcomers, the CVS repository has been cleaned up and we have also been
helping split off parts of Moore into smaller sub-packages, which use
the new EDM. For 13.0.0, this process will continue, and there will be a
big push to document the EDM, provide a transient/persistent split for
more packages, and work on finalizing the EDM.

**2.2.5.5 Monitoring Infrastructure**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  first functioning Gatherer 1-Oct-05       \--              1-Oct-05       Completed

  first successful running   31-Jan-06      \[New\]          31-Jan-06      Completed
  of LAr partition with                                                     
  online display                                                            

  initial discussions on     31-Jan-06      \[New\]          31-Jan-06      Completed
  data quality monitoring as                                                
  separate from the Gatherer                                                

  irst successful running of 5-Feb-06       \[New\]          5-Feb-06       Completed
  complete online                                                           
  environment through full                                                  
  chain to display                                                          

  first version of Gatherer  6-Mar-06       \[New\]          6-Mar-06       Completed (See
  for tdaq-01-06                                                            #1)

  Commit of Gatherer version 31-Mar-06      \[New\]          30-Jun-06      Delayed (See #2)
  incorporating further Run                                                 
  Control-related mods. in                                                  
  prep. for pre-release.                                                    

  first draft of DQM         31-Mar-06      \[New\]          31-Mar-06      Completed
  requirements document to                                                  
  ATLAS MWG                                                                 
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  tdaq-01-06 was later delayed but not as a result of
anything related to the Gatherer.

**Note #2**  This work was delayed for reasons external this work.

**Frederic Luehring (Indiana University)**

Research by Haleh Hadavand continued in Jan-March 2006 in three
categories. First, work proceeded to upgrade the Gatherer to be able to
function in the actual data-taking environment. This included update to
string manipulation and usage of run control facilities. Several
problems with the structure of the Gatherer were identified. These were
inherited from the previous developers of this tool. The work to rectify
these progressed substantially in this period. Second, the data quality
monitoring tools, which were originally envisioned to be part of the
Gatherer effort, were realized to be a much larger project. In
conjunction with Monitoring Working Group (MWG) discussion, we have
split this off of Gatherer work, and the relevant requirements
discussion was begun in this period. Haleh has been integrally involved
in the requirements discussion and writing up of the
D(ata)Q(uality)M(onitoring) in this period. Third, Haleh has been
integrally involved in gaining further expertise for running online
tools for LAr monitoring She successfully produced the first working
setup of these tools with monitoring on one node in February.

**2.2.6 Infrastructure Support**

**2.2.6.2 Librarian**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Release NICOS version 1.1  30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  with the better                                                           
  multiplatform support                                                     

  Setup mirror of ATLAS      30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  Pacman cache at BNL                                                       

  Install and support ATLAS  31-Dec-06      \--              31-Dec-06      On Schedule
  releases and associated                                                   
  external software at BNL                                                  

  Support ATLAS software     31-Dec-06      \--              31-Dec-06      On Schedule
  nightly builds at BNL and                                                 
  CERN                                                                      
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Alexander Undrus (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

In this quarter NICOS, control system of ATLAS nightly builds,
successfully supported standard monolithic and experimental
project-oriented nightly builds. NICOS ensured proper synchronization of
project builds according to their hierarchy. The status of project
builds (with number of failed compilations and tests) was reflected on
the NICOS web pages. The build of doxygen documentation is set up for
the main branch of the nightly builds with the summary reflected on
NICOS web pages. Also the experimental ATLAS nightly builds with gcc344
compiler are started. The nightly builds were checked with about 70 unit
and integration tests performed in the ATN testing framework integrated
with NICOS. Many tests descriptions were migrated to new XML format
(same as used by the RTT test system). At BNL new ATLAS software
releases were promptly installed, usually in one to two days after CERN
installation. The mirrors of ATLAS CVS repository and ATLAS nightly
builds were supported. The LXR server, alxr.usatlas.bnl.gov, provided
the collaboration-wide service for fast searches of ATLAS software.

**2.2.7 Analysis Support**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Formation of Analysis      15-Feb-06      \--              1-Feb-06       Completed
  Support Group                                                             

  Preparation of Analysis    15-Feb-06      \--              15-Feb-06      Completed
  Support Centers Role and                                                  
  Implementation Document                                                   

  Selection of Analysis      15-Feb-06      \--              15-Feb-06      Completed
  Forum conveners                                                           

  Signing of Analysis        1-Apr-06       \--              1-Apr-06       On Schedule
  Support Center MOU                                                        

  Full operation of Analysis 1-Sep-06       \[New\]          1-Sep-06       On Schedule
  Forums                                                                    

  First analysis jamboree at 1-Oct-06       \[New\]          1-Oct-06       On Schedule
  each ASC                                                                  

  Follow-up with analysis    1-Oct-06       \[New\]          1-Oct-06       On Schedule
  jamboree participants                                                     
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Stephane Willocq (University of Massachusetts)**

During the period Jan-Mar 2006, there was significant progress in
establishing the US ATLAS Analysis Support organization. The experts for
the Analysis Support Group were identified and ready to help users.
Also, the conveners for the various Analysis Forums were identified and
started their activities. MOU were drafted for the three Analysis
Support Centers. A Beyond the Standard Model workshop took place at the
LBL ASC, in conjunction with a 2-day ATLAS software tutorial.

## 2.3 Facilities {#facilities .unnumbered}

**2.3 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary**

**Razvan Popescu (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

Hired Hiro Ito and assigned him to data management support, in
particular FTS and DQ.

The recruitment effort continues. Several other interviews and offers
had not yielded new hires.

**2.3.1 Tier 1 Facilities**

**2.3.1.1 Management/Administration**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Expand USATLAS Tier1       30-Sep-06      \[New\]          30-Sep-06      On Schedule (See
  Engineering Staff                                                         #1)
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Hire one computing professional (Hiro Ito) in support of
data management operations.

**2.3.1.2 Tier 1 Fabric Infrastructure**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Begin Installation of      15-Jan-06      \--              15-Jan-06      Completed
  Expanded LAN                                                              
  Infrastructure                                                            

  Expanded LAN               15-Feb-06      \--              15-Feb-06      Completed
  Infrastructure Operational                                                

  Expanded Facility Power    31-Mar-06      \--              31-Mar-06      On Schedule (See
  and Cooling Capacity                                                      #1)
  Available                                                                 
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  New UPS/PDU systems have been delivered and are installed.
Liebert rack-top cooling solutions are now in deployment.

**Razvan Popescu (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

The BNL LAN backbone had been upgraded to 20Gb/sec to support the
enhanced WAN connectivity. The lab\'s ESNet connection was upgraded to
10Gb/sec. Currently work in progress is focusing on providing the
additional 10Gb/sec, on an alternate path, as designed. Delivery of
redundant 20Gb/sec connection is expected in Q2\'06.

240KVA of additional UPS backup power is currently functional in the
computing center. The increment will be sufficient to support the
computing capacity increase planned for 2006.

Additionally 135tons of A/C, using a novel rack-top solution is
currently in the process of deployment.

**2.3.1.3 Tier 1 Linux Systems**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Begin CPU/dCache Disk      1-Apr-06       \--              1-Apr-06       On Schedule
  Expansion Procurement                                                     

  CPU/dCache Disk Expansion  15-Apr-06      \--              15-Apr-06      On Schedule
  Order Placed                                                              

  Begin CPU/dCache Disk      15-May-06      \--              15-May-06      On Schedule
  Expansion Installation                                                    

  Central Disk Expansion     30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  Operational                                                               

  CPU/dCache Disk Expansion  30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  Operational                                                               
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.3.1.4 Tier 1 Storage Systems**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  New Tape Subsystem Order   15-Dec-05      \--              15-Dec-05      Completed
  Placed                                                                    

  Begin Installation of New  15-Jan-06      \--              15-Jan-06      Completed
  Tape Subsystem                                                            

  New Tape Subsystem         15-Feb-06      \--              15-Feb-06      Completed
  Operational                                                               

  Begin Central Disk         1-Apr-06       \--              1-Apr-06       On Schedule
  Expansion Procurement                                                     

  Central Disk Expansion     15-Apr-06      \--              15-Apr-06      On Schedule
  Order Placed                                                              

  Begin Central Disk         15-May-06      \--              15-May-06      On Schedule
  Expansion Installation                                                    
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.3.1.5 Tier 1 Wide Area Services**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  OSG 0.4.0 Deployed and     31-Dec-05      \--              31-Dec-05      Completed
  Operational                                                               

  All required SC4 Software  31-Jan-06      \--              31-Jan-06      Completed
  for Baseline Services                                                     
  Deployed                                                                  

  BNL Wide Area Network      28-Feb-06      \--              28-Feb-06      Completed
  Upgrade Operational                                                       

  10Gbs BNL Tier 1 \<-\>     31-Mar-06      \--              31-Mar-06      Completed
  Tier 0 Dedicated                                                          
  Connectivity Operational                                                  

  SC4 Set-up Complete and    30-Apr-06      \--              30-Apr-06      On Schedule
  Basic Service Demonstrated                                                
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.3.1.6 Tier 1 Operations**

  ------------------------------------------------------ -------------- ---------------- -------------- ------------
  **Milestone**                                          **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  500CPU, 150Disk, 200WAN=\>Disk, 300Tape,200WAN=\>Tape  15-Feb-06      \--              15-Feb-06      Completed

  1125CPU,525Disk,200WAN=\>Disk,300Tape,200WFAN=\>Tape   30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  ------------------------------------------------------ -------------- ---------------- -------------- ------------

**2.3.2 Tier 2 Facilities**

**2.3.2.1 University of Chicago/Indiana**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  16 TB NFS storage          31-Mar-06      \[New\]          31-Mar-06      Completed (See
  reconfigured                                                              #1)

  Benchmarks of ATLAS on     31-Mar-06      \[New\]          31-Mar-06      On Schedule (See
  candidate Tier2 platforms                                                 #2)

  Dedicated ATLAS /home      31-Mar-06      \[New\]          31-Mar-06      Completed (See
  server deployed                                                           #3)

  LCG Accounting System for  31-Mar-06      \[New\]          31-Mar-06      Completed (See
  US ATLAS - preparation and                                                #4)
  first installations                                                       
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Partly solved stability problems at UC Tier 2.

**Note #2**  Benchmarks of ATLAS software (KitValidation) on various
platforms (Xeon, Opteron, single versus multi-core processors.

**Note #3**  Partly solved stability problems on UC cluster site.

**Note #4**  Preparations for deployment of LCG software to report
accounting statistics into the LCG reporting systems.

**Rob Gardner (University of Chicago)**

During this period work performed on the Midwest Tier 2 facilities was
focused on supporting on-going production needs of the PanDA team,
supporting user analysis via local job submission tools (condor_submit),
on-going work to re-configure the UC cluster filesystem to address Linux
2.6 kernel instabilities for NFS filesystems, on-going DQ2 support and
custodial maintenance of ATLAS datasets, LCG accounting, and planning
for summer MWT2 procurements.

Some items in brief:

\* Preparations, initial installations and validation of LCG accounting
tools; recipes created and support assistance for other US ATLAS
facilities (Tier1, Tier2 centers).

\* Benchmarks of ATLAS software (KitValidation) on various platforms
(Xeon, Opteron, single versus multi-core processors.

\* Development and testing of Condor group priority settings for the UC
batch scheduler.

\* On-going work in the OSG Integration Testbed - participation in ITB
workshops, weekly meetings, and testbed deployments of the core OSG
software stack.

\* Validation of ATLAS production software on the OSG ITB.

\* Procurement and deployment of systems backup server for UC site of
the MWT2.

\* Development, deployment and testing of system backup scripts.

\* Reconfiguration of 12 TB storage system to use SLC 3.0 operating
system over Rocks-based CentOS 4 (which has Linux 2.6 kernel leading to
kernel panics serving the 64-node, Linux 2.4-based cluster).

\* Hire of Dan Schrager to MWT2 technical staff.

\* Deployment of DQ2 instance on UC Teraport cluster (MWT2 leveraged
resource).

\* Procurement of DQ2 server for use at IU AVIDD cluster (iVDGL
prototype Tier2).

\* Installation of DQ2 at IU.

\* Deployment and validation of ATLAS software releases on UC Teraport
cluster (resolving SUSE 9 platform, AMD64 issues).

\* Continued development and on-going maintenance of ROCKS cluster
management configuration.

\* On-going operation and troubleshooting of GUMS server. Documentation
of configuration example for other Tier2 centers.

\* On-going operations and troubleshooting of US production system with
its dependent services (DQ2).

\* Deployment and testing of DotProject internal project reporting tool.

\* Continued participation at weekly US ATLAS facilities and operations
meeting.

\* Continued participation in weekly OSG Integration meeting.

\* Continued participation in weekly OSG Operations meeting.

**2.3.2.3 Southwest**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  OU SWT2 Cluster running    14-Apr-06      \[New\]          14-Apr-06      On Schedule
  CSC production                                                            

  UTA DPCC Cluster ready for 9-Jun-06       \[New\]          9-Jun-06       On Schedule
  Distributed Analysis                                                      

  UTA SWT2 Cluster running   15-Jun-06      \[New\]          15-Jun-06      On Schedule
  CSC production                                                            

  Reconfiguration of SWT2    15-Jul-06      \[New\]          15-Jul-06      On Schedule
  Queues to balance managed                                                 
  production and distributed                                                
  analysis users                                                            
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

The SWT2 facilities (UTA and OU) completed their purchase of new
clusters from Dell. The clusters have identical configuration. The OU
cluster is 25% of the UTA cluster.

Both institutions are in the process of setting up power and other
infrastructure in their machine rooms dedicated to the new SWT2
clusters. Note DPCC at UTA is in old building - it will not move to the
location of the rest of UTA SWT2.

We expect the new SWT2 clusters to become operational in the next
quarter. In the meantime CSC production continues with old hardware at
both institutions.

The UTA SWT2 cluster was upgraded to a dedicated 1GB network link to the
outside. OU already has 1GB link. However, DPCC will remain restricted
to 100 Mb.

**2.3.3 Wide Area Network**

**Shawn McKee (University of Michigan)**

The LHC-OPN (T0-T1 Networking) met in Amsterdam on January 30, 2006 to
discuss current status and planning for the four working groups:
Routing, Security, Operations and Monitoring. Shawn McKee, US ATLAS
Networking, is organizing the Monitoring activity for the LHC-OPN and
presented plans to create a prototype testbed for monitoring.

Progress continues on developing advanced networking capabilities
through projects like UltraLight, Terapaths, Lambda Station and OSCARS.
Initial planning for Super-Computing 2006 is beginning. Terapaths plans
to release a beta version of its QoS management software in early summer
2006. Lambda Station has produced a CD for easy install of their
software.

UltraLight is continuing to work on many network areas including
utilization of 10GE links \"disk-to-disk\" with single servers. Industry
is collaborating and support in the form of hardware has been provided
by Myricom, 3Ware and AMD.

The networking pre-proposal to OSG (Open Science Grid) was not
integrated into the final OSG proposal submitted in winter 2006.

Two proposals related to US ATLAS networking were submitted: one to NSF
Physics at the Information Frontier called PLaNetS (Physics Lambda
Network Services) and one to DOE SCiDAC called LHC-Monitoring
Infrastructure. We hope to hear the results by early summer.

**2.3.4 Grid Tools & Services**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Development of components  1-Oct-05       \--              1-Oct-05       Completed
  for ATLAS production                                                      
  system (scheduler, broker)                                                
  (Chicago)                                                                 

  Integration with           1-Nov-05       \--              1-Nov-05       Completed
  distributed data                                                          
  management services and                                                   
  infrastructure (Chicago)                                                  

  Development on as needed   1-Feb-06       \--              1-Feb-06       On Schedule
  basis, components for                                                     
  distributed production and                                                
  analysis focusing on                                                      
  distributed grid data                                                     
  management (Chicago)                                                      
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**2.3.4.2 Workflow Services**

**Rob Gardner (University of Chicago)**

On-going work at University of Chicago on grid-based workflow services.
This item covers contributions from M. Mabelli\'s work on the PanDA
production system and its dependent integration to core grid
infrastructure.

The deliverables and milestones achieved are as follows:

\* Programming for USATLAS
\[\[https://uimon.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ATLAS/PanDA\]\[PanDA\]\]
executor

\* Development of the Brokerage package has been handed over to Tadashi:
\[\[https://uimon.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ATLAS/PandaBrokerage\]\[PandaBrokerage\]\]

\* Development of the !JobScheduler in collaboration with Xin Zhao
\[\[https://uimon.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ATLAS/PandaJobScheduler\]\[PandaJobScheduler\]\].
The package has been split into two: the !JobScheduler itself (sender of
pilots jobs) and the Pilot package.

\* Development of the !JobScheduler itself

\* New scheduling policies

\* Improved stability

\* Increased autonomy of the pusher (program sending pilot jobs)

\* Coordination with Xin that is working on the Pilot development (new
package that branched out)

\* Packaging of the !PanDA packages (!PandaJS, !PandaSrv, !PandaJDE,
Panda, auxiliary DQ-Client) together with Horst Severini. Provided the
initial version of the packaging scripts and Pacman file templates;
continued contributions with Horst in subsequent versions.

\* Troubleshooting and support of USATLAS production activity

\* Troubleshooting of different problems involving

\* job submission at gatekeeper

\* file transfer

\* jobs submitted at the MWT2

\* Maintenance of the USATLAS Capone executor (with Jerry Gieraltowski)
\[\[https://uimon.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ATLAS/Capone\]\[Capone\]\]:

\* Release 1.2 is still the current one

\* Minimal support for users

\* Activity within the ATLAS worldwide collaboration

\* Major involvement in the ATLAS !ProdSys protocol definition and
partial contribution to its coding.

\* Participation in the ATLAS monitoring effort led by John Kennedy
(FZK-CERN).

\* Grid activities (OSG and Interoperability efforts)

\* Participation in the Glue Schema v1.2 effort:

\* Writing of the Glue 1.2 documented, final draft (edited by Sergio
Andreozzi)

\* Involvement in the GIP (Generic Information Provider) activity within
OSG

\* Participation in the OSG monitoring and information system activity
(MIG)

\* Led the CE storage activity within OSG to define how disk space are
seen from within the CE environment.

\* Coordination of the meetings/discussions.

\* Revision of the
\[\[http://osg.ivdgl.org/twiki/bin/view/Integration/LocalStorageRequirements\]
\[Local Storage Requirements\]\] document (with comments and
contributions from various parties).

\* Writing of the
\[\[http://osg.ivdgl.org/twiki/bin/view/Integration/LocalStorageUse\]\[Local
Storage Use\]\] document. A guide for Grid users.

\* Writing of
the\[\[http://osg.ivdgl.org/twiki/bin/view/Integration/LocalStorageConfiguration\]\[Local
Storage Configuration\]\] document. A guide for OSG Site administration.

**2.3.5 Grid Production**

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

The first quarter of 2006 was very busy with CSC production. We
completed Release 11 validation and started large sample production.
Over 10 million events were produced in ATLAS. We reached target rate of
2M events per week ATLAS-wide. U.S. Production contributed approximately
25% of the total.

During this period we also successfully migrated U.S. production from
the Capone system to PanDA. In January, data were produced in parallel
(duplicate events) with both systems. After this, PanDA was validated
for official production and CSC production was stopped with Capone.
PanDA uses DQ2 for data management and therefore became the first
executor in ATLAS to use DQ2.

Unfortunately, a rare G4 bug was discovered after many samples had
already been generated. Many of the event samples will be regenerated
with a bug fix release 11.0.42.

**2.3.5.1 Software Acceptance**

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

The operations team started to use the PanDA system for production in
this quarter. They provided valuable feedback to the developers. We
achieved a stable version of PanDA for CSC production in this quarter,
through close collaboration between the production operations team and
PanDA developers.

**2.3.5.2 Deployment of Software Services**

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

Many ATLAS releases were installed, approximately bi-weekly cycle. PanDA
was installed for production.

**2.3.5.3 Validation and Hardening**

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

The primary production task during January and February was software
validation. Various physics samples were run with each new release of
Athena, every two weeks. Hundreds of bugs were reported to the Savannah
system set up by ATLAS. Finally, the 11.0.41 release was accepted for
massive production.

The PanDA production software, the Eowyn executor, and the DQ2 software
were all validated by the production team. Many bug reports and
feedbacks were sent to the software developers, leading to hardening of
all the systems.

**2.3.5.4 Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Start CSC Production (UTA) 23-Jan-06      \--              23-Jan-06      Completed

  Start Release 12           1-May-06       \--              1-May-06       On Schedule
  Production (UTA)                                                          
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

The PanDA shift team consists of Yuri Smirnov (BNL), Nurcan Ozturk
(UTA), Mark Sosebee (UTA) and Tomasz Wlodek (BNL). Shifts are run 6 days
a week. PanDA production proceeded smoothly with this shift team. More
than 3 million events were processed in the U.S., covering dozens of
physics channels, many production steps (evgen, simul, digit, recon,
pileup), and dozens of software releases.

During the first 3 months of production, the PanDA development team
provided critical support for operations.

Wensheng Deng provides full time support for DQ2 data management in the
U.S. This played a critical role in successful CSC production.

In international ATLAS, Kaushik De is the Distributed Production
Coordinator, Pavel Nevski coordinates Task and Job Definitions, and
Alexei Klimentov coordinates DDM Operations.

## 3.1 M&O Silicon {#mo-silicon .unnumbered}

**3.1 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary**

All spare pixel modules have been completed. The prototype service
quarter panel at CERN is being readied for the 10% system test when End
Section C arrives in May. OSU is loading 36 additional opto boards at
collaboration request. The responsibility of this was to have been
shared with Siegen but they are no longer able to complete that task.
How to cover these costs within the collaboration is still being worked
out.

The SCT four-barrel assembly was inserted into the TRT barrel assembly
on 17-Feb-06. Connection of services is proceeding for testing prior to
installation in the pit. Cable assembly, testing and installation
continues and will continue well into the spring. Some major problems
arose with the barrel and end-cap patch panel 1 assemblies. A resolution
appears at hand.

The spare RODs have been fabricated and debugged.

**3.1.1 Pixels**

**Maurice Garcia-Sciveres (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

Hot Modules

All spare pixel modules have been completed

Sector and Disk Production

All production sectors have been loaded on rings as part of production.
One sector developed a cooling leak and was replaced with a spare
sector. The leak has been repaired with epoxy and this has now become a
spare. There are 3 spare sectors fully loaded. Some QC still remains to
certify all 3 as usable if needed.

Preparations for 10% system test at CERN

24 spare opto boards have been loaded on the prototype service quarter
panel that is now at CERN. A cold box has been designed to house the
service quarter panel together with End section C for the 10% system
test (box not yet produced). Adapter pipes and cables will be needed
also. The box design has the end section in a horizontal position in
order to allow cosmic ray running (following a study of rates in
different orientations with typical scintillators). A plastic holder to
support the end section in this box is being made (will also be used for
holding during transport to CERN, anticipated on May 15).

Additional OPTO boards

The collaboration has requested that OSU load an additional 36 opto
boards in order to instrument the spare locations in the service panels,
so that modules can be assigned to them in case of failures in the
service chain. The original plan was to share this burden with Siegen,
but this institute is no longer able to produce boards. The cost of
materials for this additional effort will come from the pixel
collaboration common fund, while the labor cost in the US (approx.
\$10K) is still to be resolved.

**3.1.1.1 Pre-Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Start of Pre-operations of 1-May-06       1-May-06         15-May-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Pixel Endcap (LBNL)                                                       
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Pre-operations start when the endcap arrives at CERN.
Delays in specification of capillaries have pushed back the transport
date by 2 weeks.

**3.1.1.3 Maintenance**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Complete Spare Modules and 15-Sep-06      \--              15-Sep-06      On Schedule
  Assemblies (LBNL)                                                         

  Spare Opto Board           30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  Production/Test Complete                                                  
  (OSU)                                                                     
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**3.1.2 SCT**

**Alex Grillo (UCSC)**

The four-barrel assembly was inserted into the TRT barrel assembly on
17-Feb-06. Connection of services is proceeding for testing prior to
installation in the pit.

Cable assembly, testing and installation continues and will continue
well into the spring. Some major problems arose with the barrel and
end-cap patch panel 1 assemblies. A resolution appears at hand.

**3.1.2.1 Pre-Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Complete Insertion of SCT  23-Jan-06      28-Feb-06        17-Feb-06      Completed
  Barrel into TRT Barrel                                                    

  Complete Pre-Operations of 10-May-06      28-Feb-06        10-May-06      On Schedule
  SCT Inside ID (UCSC)                                                      

  Start Installation of ID   11-May-06      11-May-06        15-Jul-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Barrel into UX15 (UCSC)                                                   

  Complete Intial Test of ID 15-Jul-06      1-Jul-06         15-Sep-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Inside of UX15 (UCSC)                                                     
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  This is the new ATLAS schedule for installation of the ID
barrel into UX15

**Note #2**  Given the delay in installation of the ID Barrel into UX15,
the initial testing will also be delayed.

**Alex Grillo (UCSC)**

The four-barrel SCT assembly was finally inserted into the TRT on
17-Feb-06. This was delayed first by problems with TRT cooling pipes and
then with some leaks in SCT cooling pipes. In the end, the insertion
went quite smoothly. A few staves near the top and near the bottom of
all four barrels are now being connected to services so that noise and
cosmic ray tests can be run before the unit is moved to the collider
hall.

Sofia is part of the Inner Detector Offline Commissioning group. She is
the coordinator of the cosmic simulation production providing
simulated/digitized/reconstructed data samples. The production of these
specific samples will be used for digitization, tracking and alignment
studies by the ATLAS ID software community.

Forest continues to operate the cooling system for the barrel in the
surface building as tests are repeated with the integrated SCT/TRT. He
has also been contributing to sorting out problems with patch panel
installation inside the ATLAS detector.

The installation of cables in the pit has now shifted to the spliced
TypeII and TypeIII cables which includes connecting them to the dummy
patch panel 1 assemblies. This has uncovered problems with both the
barrel and the end-cap patch panels. It turns out that the barrel patch
panel and cable connection was prototyped with a "last prototype" cable
and not the final production cable. The actual cable is about 0.5 mm
thicker and does not fit properly in the clamp. Also, the full
complement of clamps as well as clips to hold cable connectors securely
in place were not available at CERN when installation started. In the
case of the end-cap patch panel 1, apparently no prototyping had been
done. This was very problematic because the design that had been worked
out between Ned and the RAL mechanical engineers proved to be unworkable
in the confines of the cryostat where installation must take place.

Once again there was insufficient communication between RAL engineers
and CERN people resulting in the incorrect cable being prototyped for
the barrel and a complete failure of RAL staff to prototype the end-cap
assembly.

Sandra Ciocio, who is supervising the cable testing and installation,
was squeezed between pressure from TC to keep installation on schedule
and the need to get the installation right so that proper ground
referencing and strain relief of the cables would be accomplished. After
several weeks of discussions between RAL engineers, Sandra and Forest
and others at CERN, and Ned, it appears that workable solutions are
possible. Ned is traveling to CERN in mid-April to work out final
details.

**3.1.3 RODs**

**Abraham Seiden (UCSC)**

The spare RODs have been fabricated and debugged.

**3.1.3.1 Pre-Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Spare RODs Completed       1-May-06       \--              1-May-06       On Schedule
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

##  {#section-2 .unnumbered}

## 3.2 M&O TRT {#mo-trt .unnumbered}

**3.2 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary**

**Harold Ogren (Indiana University)**

During this period the final shake out of the electronics for the Barrel
TRT was finished, cosmic ray runs were taken with both upper and lower
segments of the barrel, and the SCT was successfully integrated with the
Barrel TRT.

Service manifolds:

The remaining testing and installation of replacement parts for the
services manifold was carried out during this period. The PEEK plastic
pieces needed for the modified cooling and active gas manifolds were
produced at Indiana University and shipped to CERN. The assembly of
these pieces into phi segments for a sector of six modules was carried
out by Kirill Egorov with testing help from Chuck Long from Hampton
University.

At the end of this reporting period the upper and lower quarters of the
service manifolds had been installed and were being tested in
preparation for the covering of these areas by the heat spreader plates
of the SCT.

Electronics and system testing:

Testing of the electronics by the University of Pennsylvania group
proceeded during this time. All electronic channels on the Barrel were
completed and detailed studies of the upper and lower sectors with
cosmic rays were finished. Work continued on the endcap checkout.

**3.2.1 TRT-Subsystem**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  SCT Installed in TRT       23-Jan-06      \--              11-Feb-06      Completed (See
                                                                            #1)

  SCT-TRT Joint Test         10-May-06      10-Jun-06        19-Jun-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Complete                                                                  

  Barrel and SCT Install in  11-May-06      11-Jul-06        16-Aug-06      Delayed (See #3)
  ATLAS                                                                     

  TRT Complete, EC-C         6-Jul-06       6-Jul-06         5-Oct-06       Delayed (See #4)
  Installed                                                                 

  EC-C Complete, EC-A        5-Aug-06       5-Aug-06         5-Oct-06       Delayed (See #5)
  Installed                                                                 
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Was installed in on Feb 17 .

**Note #2**  This will drag out until the ID is ready to go into the
pit.

**Note #3**  Estimates vary when the services will be ready for us.

**Note #4-5** schedule has shifted for endcap

**3.2.1.1 TRT Pre-Operations**

**3.2.1.1.4 TRT-6 mod-check**

**Harold Ogren (Indiana University)**

Members of our group- Kirill Egorov worked on the assembly of the
Service manifolds.

The remaining testing and installation of replacement parts for the
services manifold was carried out during this period. The PEEK plastic
pieces needed for the modified cooling and active gas manifolds were
produced at Indiana University and shipped to CERN. The assembly of
these pieces into phi segments for a sector of six modules was carried
out by Kirill Egorov with testing help from Chuck Long from Hampton
University.

**3.2.1.1.5 TRT-SCT in SR**

**Harold Ogren (Indiana University)**

The SCT was successfully joined with the TRT on February 17. The
following few weeks were taking up with testing of the SCT components
and the preparation of the upper sector services for the covering of
these areas by the SCT spreader plates. This was completed on time.

**3.2.2 Common TRT/ID**

## 3.3 M&O Liquid Argon {#mo-liquid-argon .unnumbered}

**Ryszard Stroynowski (Southern Methodist University)**

The commissioning of the front-end electronics is progressing slowly. In
spite of extensive testing of individual components and of individual
boards after their assembly, we find new problems in operations of the
front-end system. All of these problems can be resolved by component
replacement and repairs but all of them require a lot of attention. The
problems encountered in operations of low voltage power supplies appear
to have been resolved. The BNL team has found several underlying failure
causes of the Power supplies units. All of these were related to local
temperature excess. The plan for replacement of marginal components
(capacitors and inductors) has been discussed with MDI and additional
air cooling will have to be added by BNL. All units will have to be
re-worked.

MDI will prepare the work plan but it is unlikely that all units will be
available before the end of July. The commissioning of the tower builder
and of the Level 1 receiver uncovered several problems related to the
modified cabling of the EMEC inner wheel. It is likely that new boards
correcting for cabling problems will have to be added to the base plane
of the front-end crate to correct for these problems. The commissioning
of the optical connections is progressing well. The work on fiber
splicing and connectors for the barrel should be completed at the end of
April. However, individual fibers will not be connected to the FEBs
until the power supplies will be installed to minimize cabling cross
over problems. A major part of commissioning includes organization of
the data bases and rack wizard. This work follows the commissioning
procedures and is progressing well. The transition to the UNICOS
cryogenics operating system was successful. The BNL team will continue
to consult with the CERN cryo group throughout the cryostat cooldown
period. The preparations for the beam test in Protvino to verify
performance of FCal components in high radiation is progressing well.

**3.3.1 Mechanical Liquid Argon M&O**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Commission Cryogenic       10-Jan-06      \--              10-Jan-06      Completed
  Connection Lines to the                                                   
  Barrel at z=0                                                             

  Commission Vacuum Pumps,   30-Jan-06      \--              30-Jan-06      Completed
  Monitoring etc. for Barrel                                                

  Phase 1&2 (Arizona) -      15-Jun-06      \--              15-Jun-06      On Schedule
  Endcap (A+C) cold test in                                                 
  the pit                                                                   
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**3.3.1.2 Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Commissioning of Endcap C  1-Feb-06       1-Jun-06         1-Sep-06       Delayed (See #1)
  in the Pit Complete                                                       

  Commissioning of Pit       1-Mar-06       1-Mar-06         10-Apr-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Cryogenics Complete                                                       

  Re-commissioning           1-Mar-06       1-Mar-06         1-Nov-06       Delayed (See #3)
  Underground Complete                                                      

  Commissioning of Endcap A  1-Aug-06       1-Aug-06         1-Nov-06       Delayed (See #4)
  in the Pit Complete                                                       
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Schedule change put higher priority on cryogenics for the
toroid and solenoid than for the endcaps.

**Note #2**  Started with \~ 1 month delay

**Note #3**  Awaits endcap A connections

**Note #4**  has not started yet

**3.3.1.3 Maintenance**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Start Barrel HV Operations 1-Feb-06       1-Feb-06         1-Jul-06       Delayed (See #1)
  (SB)                                                                      
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  delivery of lv power supplies has been delayed

**3.3.2 Electronic Liquid Argon M&O**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Operation of the First     30-Dec-05      \--              30-Dec-05      Completed
  Full Crate on the Truck                                                   
  Linked to USA15                                                           

  Complete Commissioning of  1-Mar-06       1-Mar-06         1-May-06       Delayed (See #1)
  Barrel Optical Links (SMU)                                                

  Complete Commissioning of  1-Mar-06       \--              1-Jun-06       Delayed (See #2)
  EndcapC Optical Links                                                     
  (SMU)                                                                     

  Operation of all Crates on 30-Apr-06      30-Apr-06        30-Jun-06      Delayed (See #3)
  the Truck                                                                 

  Operation of all Crates on 30-Apr-06      30-Apr-06        30-Jun-06      Delayed (See #4)
  the Truck stand alone                                                     

  Commissioning of Low       1-Jun-06       1-Jun-06         1-Aug-06       Delayed (See #5)
  Voltage Power Supplies on                                                 
  the Barrel Complete                                                       

  Commissioning of Low       1-Jul-06       1-Jul-06         1-Aug-06       Delayed (See #6)
  Voltage Power Supplies on                                                 
  the Endcap C Complete                                                     

  Commissioning of Low       1-Aug-06       \--              1-Aug-06       Delayed (See #7)
  Voltage Power Supplies on                                                 
  the Endcap A Complete                                                     

  Complete Commissioning of  1-Aug-06       \--              1-Aug-06       On Schedule
  EndcapA optical Links                                                     
  (SMU)                                                                     
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  delay for the magnet tests

**Note #2**  Schedule change postponed the installation of electronics
on the endcaps for after the magnet tests are complete.

**Note #3**  delay for the magnet tests

**Note #4**  will work on the final configuration only

**Note #5-7**  late delivery from MDI

**3.3.2.1 Pre-Operations and Commissioning**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Start Commissioning of     15-Nov-05      \--              15-Apr-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Barrel Receiver System                                                    
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  Completion of              1-Dec-05       1-Mar-06         1-Aug-06       Delayed (See #2)
  Documentation of Level 1                                                  
  Trigger Interface for                                                     
  Liquid Argon and Tile                                                     
  Calorimeters (Pitt)                                                       

  Complete Commissioning of  31-Dec-05      31-May-06        31-Jul-06      Delayed (See #3)
  Barrel Receiver System                                                    
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  Maintenance Procedures for 31-Dec-05      15-Apr-06        15-Sep-06      Delayed (See #4)
  Receiver Modules Complete                                                 
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  Start commissioning of     1-Jan-06       15-May-06        15-Jul-06      Delayed (See #5)
  EndcapC Receiver System                                                   
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  Complete Commissioning of  1-Mar-06       \--              15-Jun-06      Delayed (See #6)
  EndcapC Receiver System                                                   
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  Start Commissioning of     1-May-06       30-May-06        30-Aug-06      Delayed (See #7)
  EndcapA Receiver System                                                   
  (Pitt)                                                                    

  Complete Commissioning of  30-Jun-06      30-Jun-06        30-Sep-06      Delayed (See #8)
  EndcapA Receiver System                                                   
  (Pitt)                                                                    
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Need all FEC crates commissioned

**Note #2**  Documentation almost complete. Documents need to be updated
with final versions of hardware.

**Note #3-8**  Need all FEC crates commissioned

**Francesco Lanni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

In the Jan-Mar period these are the main activities of the BNL group in
the Front-end electronics:

1\. Commissioning of the first 2 cooling sectors (K. Sexton, R. Burns,
A. Hoffman) on the barrel calorimeter after the infrastructure
installation by Technical Coordination was completed. Pre-operation of
the final cooling circuits on the sectors above mentioned has started.

2\. Continuing the development of tools and software for pre-operation
and commissioning of the Front-end crate and power supply system
\[DCS\]. PVSS software developed by D. Damazio controls and monitors the
activity of the FE-crates as well as the 280V power supply racks in
USA-15. First implementation of the interlock integration in our DCS
system has been deployed.

3\. Preparation of the EMF setup to pre-commission LVPS final units
delivered to CERN. A minimal system with passive loads has been setup to
verify the correct functionality of the LVPS units before installation
on the detector and real PS commissioning (D. Damazio)

4\. First implementation (S. Kandasamy) of the rack-wizard software and
Oracle based DB system for installation and commissioning of each
front-end component \[work will continue for several months during the
whole commissioning phase and subsequently for all calorimeter
operations\]

5\. Participation (H. Ma, D. Damazio, H. Chen) to the LAr EM barrel
expert week in March where several crates were for the first time
powered up and exercised at the same time

6\. Start working on accessing condition databases \[COOL/POOL
integration and communication with TDAQ and LAr online software\] for
commissioning and particularly in preparation for the upcoming expert
weeks (H. Chen).

**John Sondericker (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

During the week of March 20th Ms. Rehak carried out UNICOS commissioning
tests of the ATLAS Nitrogen Refrigerator System as per BNL agreement
with CERN following acceptance testing of the plant from Air Liquide. In
spite of the all the difficulties brought on by bugs and lack of support
throughout development of the control software, it took only a few days
of running to reproduce similar refrigerator operating conditions to
those of the original acceptance tests. We at BNL are elated and happy
to gain success with what at times had seemed an impossible task while
CERN Cryo enjoys their UNICOS standard controls and displays.

The refrigerator continued to be run for the next few weeks into the
month of April to get some more operating time logged on the new system.
Beyond the mechanical and reliability aspects of the running period,
time was spent breaking in future CERN operators so that they understand
and are comfortable with the differences found in BNL operating
philosophies.

**John Parsons (Columbia University (Nevis Laboratory))**

Commissioning of the FEBs on the EM Barrel continues, though hindered by
the lack of final LVPS. Several crates were successfully operated during
the recent second EMB expert week.

Commissioning of the FEBs of the EC-C has started, led by Dominik
Dannheim. The first EC expert week is planned for June.

Repairs of FEBs at CERN have been organized and started, using the
infrastructure of the CERN SMT workshop. Jaro Ban has used this facility
to repair a few dozen FEBs with faulty shaper chips. Spare FEB parts
have been shipped to CERN, where they are being stored in the EMF.

The pre-series FEBs were shipped back to Nevis from CERN. The FEB
accelerated lifetime test will soon get underway at Nevis using these
FEBs.

**Bill Cleland (University of Pittsburgh)**

During the period Jan-Mar 2006, the Pitt group has continued its
preparation for commissioning of the L1 branch, which is carried out as
part of the commissioning of the front end crates. The EMB was moved
into position in December 2005, and the commissioning with the final
trigger cables will begin once the connectors have been mounted and the
cables connected (currently scheduled for the EMB in May 06).
Preparation for the commissioning includes development of the analysis
program, which compares the pulse height and timing between signals read
through the main readout and the L1 signals which are digitized in a
special ADC, which will eventually be replaced by the L1 preprocessor.
The program involves waveform reconstruction and determination of
optimal filter coefficients for both branches. Developing this software
is one of our major activities.

In January 06 a problem was discovered with the grounding of the
transition modules. One of the ground shields which is connected to a
pin on the DB37 connector on the transition module was connected to
crate ground, in violation of the ATLAS grounding rules. This was traced
to a layout error in the transition module. A simple modification to the
boards was developed, which solved the problem, and all of the
transition modules have since been modified.

As has been reported previously, we have experienced failures of
transformers on the receiver board, at the level of 1-2 per thousand
channels. We have now placed equipment and developed the expertise at
CERN to replace these transformers, and all of the bad transformers have
been replaced.

Strain reliefs for the trigger cables which enter and exit the receiver
have been designed (with help from BNL) and fabricated in our machine
shop at Pitt. We have provided supports both for the cables for which we
are responsible (input to the receivers) and for the cables for which
the L1 group are responsible (output to receivers and inputs to
preprocessors). The final shipment of supports to CERN was made in
January 2006.

In March 06 it was discovered that there are some discrepancies in the
cabling of the EMEC and the specifications for the baseplanes and L1
summing in the front end crate. Two such instances have been found, and
we are looking into possible solutions. One solution would involve the
remaking of remapping boards for the receiver, and another would involve
the remaking of certain layer sum boards. This issue will be discussed
during the June liquid argon week.

**3.3.2.3 Maintenance**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Long Term Burn-in of FEBs  1-Jun-06       \--              1-Jun-06       On Schedule (See
  at BNL Complete                                                           #1)
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  test moved to Nevis

**3.3.3 Beam Test**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Operation of the first     30-May-06      \--              30-May-06      On Schedule
  production FEB in a System                                                
  Crate                                                                     

  Protvino Engineering Run   25-Aug-06      \--              25-Aug-06      On Schedule
  (Arizona)                                                                 
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**3.3.3.1 FCal Hadronic Tail Measurement**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  FCal Electrical Test Bench 20-Apr-06      20-Apr-06        20-Aug-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Completed (Arizona)                                                       
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  We were forced to temporarily abandon this project when a
different time-critical project demanded the manpower.

**John Rutherford (University of Arizona)**

In the last progress report it was noted that the ATLAS LArG calibration
pulser board still had some problems. We uncovered one manifestation of
the problem while analyzing the data we took in summer 2005 in the EMF
facility at Point 1 at CERN. This test used a Front End Crate (FEC) of
FCal warm electronics, an FCal baseplane, and the calibration pulser. We
took nearly a gigabyte of calibration data and saw peculiar
non-linearities. The Orsay group has now fixed the remaining pulser
problem but a test is required to confirm that all is indeed working
well. Rutherfoord will spend a few days at Orsay during the summer of
2006 to test the new calibration pulser in a FEC using the FCal
baseplane. Further analysis of the EMF data continued in this quarter
with an aim to extracting the input impedance of the preamps.

The FCal was slated to use 5 mA/25 ƒC preamps, one of the three types of
warm preamps used in the ATLAS liquid argon calorimeters. It was
discovered that not enough of these preamps were available and so we
were asked if we could make do with a different type. While possible, it
was concluded that it was far from optimal to change to one of the other
two remaining preamp varieties. More recently a number of these preamps
have been found. It appears that there are enough to populate the Front
End Boards (FEBs) but not enough for the required spares. Hopefully more
of these preamps will turn up.

The FCal Electronics Test Bench continues to make slow progress. The 64
tube electrodes are now completed. The digital section of the warm
electronics was completed last quarter and good progress has now been
made on the analog part. We were forced to stop this work however when
we discovered we were running behind on another more time-critical
project. Hopefully we can pick up again during the summer and complete
the warm electronics.

We made a special effort to accelerate the analysis of the FCal
Calibration Test Beam data taken in summer 2003 with the final FCalA
modules. We invited our ITEP colleague, Andrei Artamonov, to visit us in
Tucson for about one month and we hosted a short workshop with our
Carleton colleagues Manuella Vincter, Mohsen Khakzad, Malachi Schram,
and J.P.Archambeaux. With some ATHENA help from Walter Lampl we were
able to get the latest release working at Arizona. We were then able to
generate CBNTs for rapid turn-around of testing new code. More errors
were found in the software, mostly mapping. A subtle one had all
channels shifted by one in the phi index. This compromised previous
studies of energy contained within a cluster radius.

While we have analyzed the energy linearity and resolution for electrons
and pions, we have not yet used good tracking allowed by the Beam
Position Chambers (BPCs) nor have we purified the samples using the
extensive beam detector information. These beam detectors include not
only the BPCs but also the pulse height and timing information from our
trigger scintillators and hole veto, a ring-imaging gas Cerenkov
counter, an iron/scintillator sandwich calorimeter behind the liquid
argon cryostat, and a muon counter behind an iron and concrete beam
dump. This means that the electron sample is contaminated by pions and
the pion sample is contaminated by electrons. Some of the contamination
is from spray off upstream beam elements. We insist on avoiding any
biases in the calorimeter data so none of the purity cuts use
calorimeter information. While the contamination is small, it can
introduce small shifts in the energy peaks, broaden the resolution, and,
in particular, artificially enhance the tails on the resolution
function. Any real non-Gaussian tail contributes to the detector induced
background to the missing E~T~ signal. Therefore this is one of the
primary measurements we want to extract from our data. We don't want our
measurement diluted with additional effects just because we were sloppy
in the analysis.

The beam cleaning analysis is going well and should be completed soon.
Then we can implement the tracking software and repeat all the
calorimeter analyses with optimally cleaned samples.

In the last report we described the HV short found on one of the FCal3A
summing boards. And we described our plans for remediation. During the
transport of the EndCap A cryostat from building 180 to point 1, the
jostling didn't shake loose the debris which we guess is the cause of
the short. So in February we attempted to burn the short with a special
high-current pulser we designed and built specifically for this purpose.
We had already conducted extensive (sometimes destructive) testing on a
spare summing board and so understood the limits we could approach. The
burning attempt failed. We still have the HV short. For this attempt the
cryostat was filled with warm argon gas left from the cold tests in
Building 180. It was decided to change the gas to warm, dry nitrogen and
try again. This will be done after the cryostat is in the cavern with
the extended TileCal built around it, but before the FEC is mounted on
the FCal feedthrough. In the meantime we will run further tests on our
spare summing board in argon and nitrogen atmospheres.

At the same time as the burning attempt we also repeated the full
battery of tests on both FCalC (in the cavern) and FCalA (on the surface
at Point 1). To our surprise, none of the shorts we found on electrodes
during the cold tests are now visible. We don't understand why they went
away. In the past, all shorts developing in liquid argon remain after
emptying the cryostat. We don't know the likelihood these shorts will
return during the next fill. Unfortunately during this latest round of
testing we found a new type of failure. One of the four HV inputs to one
of the FCal1C summing boards is now disconnected. From the Time Domain
Reflectometer we can see that the disconnect is right where the HV
pigtail meets the connector on the summing board. It could either be
that a pin on the HV connector has come unsoldered or the constantan
wire has come uncrimped from its socket. This failure means that one
quarter of the electrodes served by this summing board have no HV.
Because none of the affected tube groups are contiguous (that is, the
failures are uniformly distributed within their phi slice) it will be
straightforward to develop a software correction for this failure.

Also reported last quarter were preparations for our Protvino tests in
their high intensity 60 GeV proton beam along with the HEC and EMEC
communities. While the motivation for the HEC and EMEC is to test small
samples of their modules for the higher luminosities we will see at an
upgraded LHC, the FCal has an added goal: to test the FCal materials in
the radiation background expected in 10 years of LHC running at nominal
luminosity. The extensive Dubna materials testing program conducted in
the late 1990s could reach only an equivalent of one year of nominal
luminosity running.

Our small section of an FCal1 module (dubbed the FCalchik) is now
complete except for inserting the electrode rods. We have tested the
insertion of several rods and see no problems for those sixteen
electrodes which will have the usual 250 micron gaps. More challenging
will be the other sixteen electrodes which will have 100 micron gaps.
Here we were unable to purchase 100 micron PEEK fiber so we will attempt
to cut fibers from 100 micron PEEK sheet. The FCalchik has cooling loops
embedded in the copper matrix outside of the area containing the
electrodes.

We are now preparing for the technical run planned for CERN this summer.
A big challenge stems from the dynamic range of intensities we plan to
use at Protvino. We will need a scheme to measure the number of protons
in each RF bucket so we can determine the instantaneous ionization and
energy deposit in the calorimeters. It appears this challenge will fall
on the Arizona group so we plan to start work on this as soon as classes
are over.

## 3.4 M&O Tile {#mo-tile .unnumbered}

**3.4 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary** **Larry Price (Argonne National
Laboratory)**

Sector commissioning continued after the holidays in January, but it
became clear that the drawer electronics damage seen in December was not
an isolated incident. Damage was seen in four additional drawers,
causing commissioning to be halted and an intensive evaluation of the
low voltage power supplies (LVPS) begun. An "experts week" was convened
in February which uncovered an interaction between the LVPS and the
Detector Control System (DCS) which permitted some of the voltages in
the supplies to go to their maximum possible value, following a loss of
control of the LVPS voltage-regulating feedback circuitry. As a result,
an ad hoc addition was made to the "bricks" of the LVPS to provide
over-voltage protection and a revision to the mother board for the ELMB,
the standard ATLAS controller was made and new parts ordered.

Commissioning of the cabling and other services continued in parallel
with the intensive and unexpected LVPS work, as did installation of the
MBTS scintillation counters and associated absorber. Damaged 3-in-1
cards (at Chicago) and digitizer boards (at Stockholm) had to be
repaired. Additional work was done successfully on the LVPS to reduce
the output noise level which was widening the readout pedestals beyond
comfortable levels.

Considerable progress was made on software systems for commissioning,
especially various forms of database and display software.

**3.4.1 TileCal - Specific Costs**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Begin Module-by-Module     1-Dec-05       \--              1-Dec-05       Completed
  Commissioning of Barrel                                                   

  Complete Module-by-Module  30-Apr-06      30-Apr-06        30-Aug-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Commissioning of Barrel                                                   

  Complete Initial           31-May-06      31-May-06        31-Oct-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Calibration of Barrel                                                     

  Begin Module-by-Module     15-Jun-06      15-Jun-06        15-Jul-06      Delayed (See #3)
  Commissioning of Extended                                                 
  Barrels                                                                   

  Begin Barrel Data Taking   1-Jul-06       1-Jul-06         1-Aug-06       Delayed (See #4)
  with Cosmic Rays and Full                                                 
  DAQ System                                                                

  Version 1.0 of             31-Jul-06      \--              31-Jul-06      On Schedule
  Diagnostic/Monitoring                                                     
  Software                                                                  
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1-4**  The need to retrofit low voltage power supplies with
safety and anti-noise protections have delayed module commissioning.

**3.4.1.1 Pre-Operations** **Steve Errede (University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign)**

A. Contribution to the services manufacture and installation

David Forshier, a UIUC technician, stayed at CERN for 3 months and
worked in the manufacturing and QC mainly of trigger cables. He also
contributed considerably in the QA of services in the ATLAS detector in
the cavern. This is was an important step to the milestone of having the
whole Barrel TileCal detector connection to the USA15 counting room
checked out and being able to start the complete testing from there.

B. Commissioning Activities

Irene Vichou, located at CERN, has been since the end of last year the
run coordinator for the TileCal commissioning. She defines and overlooks
the schedule of the commissioning operations for the TileCal detector as
a standalone entity. In this role, she takes care of the interactions
with the Technical Coordination and she tunes on a daily basis the
activities of 5 teams that are responsible for services, FE electronics
certification, final power and services connections, online and offline
data quality control. The target is to certify TileCal for operation. At
this moment, \~1/8 of the Barrel part of the detector has gone through
the commissioning protocol and the procedures for doing this have been
debugged.

In parallel she has been coordinating with Francesco Spano the phase II
commissioning activities, i.e. the integration of TileCal with external
systems (DAQ, DCS, Trigger and the Larg Calorimeter). Up to now there
have been well-defined and limited scale exercises of integration such
as to test functionalities or detect problems on the TileCal side.

**Kaushik De (University of Texas at Arlington)**

Hyeon Jin Kim is permanently stationed at CERN. She is on the TileCal
commissioning shift team. She participated in weekly activities to test
and commission the barrel. Kaushik De also continues to spend a majority
of his time at CERN, working on ITC pre-operations issues.

**Joey Huston (Michigan State University)**

Work proceeded on ATLAS M&O at both Michigan State University and at
CERN during the period January 2006 through March 2006. Technical staff
Ron Richards and Mike Nila made one trip to CERN during this time for a
period of about 3 weeks. Most of their effort was devoted to
installation work on EBC, and in particular to the installation of the
cryostat and of the MBTS scintillators and of the boronated polyethylene
moderators. The installation plan worked very well once access was
gained to the face of EBC. All of the cryostat scintillators for EBC
were installed and connected except for those obstructed by LAr
hydraulic jacks. Three of the 8 MBTS counters were installed. The
remaining cryostat and MBTS counters on the EBC side will be installed
in May/June during the next trip. Physicist Joey Huston also
participated in some of this work. Some time was also spent in general
preparations for transporting EBA to the pit.

**James Pilcher (University of Chicago)**

*(a) Repair and Maintenance of FE Electronics*

We maintain an electronics drawer at Chicago for testing and diagnosing
the various PCBs in the drawer. A set of 45 repaired 3in1 cards was
tested with the revised system and shipped to CERN.

New low voltage power supplies, prepared by the Prague group, are being
installed in the calorimeter modules as part of the commissioning
process. During the commissioning campaign in January, additional
front-end electronics in 4 drawers was damaged by over-voltage from the
supplies. This will require substantial repair work in the months ahead.
Continued evidence that power supplies were damaging drawer electronics
caused a considerable reorientation of priorities in the whole TileCal
collaboration. Drawer commissioning paused for February and March and
many people spent at least some of their time working to understand the
behavior of power supplies and drawers. Americans were included in this
mobilization, including Kelby Anderson and Giulio Usai from Chicago and
Larry Price and Leon Reed from Argonne.

*(b) Commissioning and Integration work*

A team of 5 Chicago people continue in full time residence at CERN
working on commissioning and integration. This team consists of one
postdoc, one graduate student, two BSc technical assistants, and one
full time electronics technician. They were supplemented by periodic
visits of faculty members and research personnel based in Chicago. David
Miller, a Chicago BSc technical assistant is in charge of a team
responsible for making the connections to the calorimeter modules.

Giulio Usai made a number of investigations into reduction of the ripple
observed at the output of the low voltage power supplies which increases
the pedestal width of measured signals at a level that will compromise
the contribution of TileCal to the muon trigger. Giulio tried several
methods of reducing the ripple and settled on a system of ferrite chokes
on the output cables of the supply. Solutions with ferrites at the
inputs would have taken less space but proved to introduce new
instabilities in the supplies.

*(c) Calibration and Monitoring*

Calibration and monitoring is an integral part of the commissioning
process. Martina Hurwitz, a Chicago graduate student, is co-leader of a
team responsible for processing and reviewing the calibration data taken
after a calorimeter module is connected to services in USA15. She has
set up monitoring histograms and reviewed all the calibration data
collected to date.

**3.4.2.1 Pre-Operations** **Kaushik De (University of Texas at
Arlington)**

Since the completion of the installation of the ITC scintillators, we
have started working on QC testing and calibration. We obtained
permission to use a Cs-137 radioactive source in Building 175 and tested
some gap scintillators with MobiDick (with the help of our Clermont
colleagues). Sufficient signal (factor of 2 over pedestal) was observed.
We saw good uniformity in signal over various parts of the counter. We
have asked for permission to use the Cs source in the pit. The plan
includes testing a sample of all 3 types of scintillators installed on
the EBC - gap, cryostat and MBTS. We will also test simultaneously for
light leaks.

**Robert Stanek (ANL)**

Continuing commissioning of barrel is being done as power supplies are
produced. Cooling is now enabled on the barrel and this makes things a
lot easier for moving around. EBC we are modifying daisy chain cables
for the missing HV CANbus capacitors and are awaiting cable tray and
schleps installation in order to proceed with commissioning of this
detector. Power supplies also need to be produced in abundance for this
to happen, by the way.

**Larry Price (ANL)**

Software development for commissioning has focused on the database
storage and access systems for commissioning data including monitoring
and performance histograms. In a collaborative effort with the group
from Rio de Janeiro, a powerful web system has been developed for
displaying historically the plots indicating the performance of the
system during commissioning. Allowance has been made for extending the
system to use during cosmic ray data taking in August.

## 3.5 M&O Muon {#mo-muon .unnumbered}

**3.5 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

Installation and Phase II commissioning of chambers for the Big Wheel
(BW)-Side C and the EIL4 stations continued in B180 at CERN. At the end
of March 06, the mechanical integration of ten BW sectors, corresponding
to the installation of 50 EM chambers, was completed. In addition, six
EIL4 stations (A13, C13, A5, C5, A1, C1) were integrated and tested and
two of them (EIL4A13 & C13) were installed in the ATLAS cavern.

Some difficulties have been encountered in the quality of the optical
fibers that connect the CSM to the readout DAQ. In some instances the
fibers appear to break following very careful and gentle handling during
installation on the BW sectors. Discussions with the Israeli vendor are
underway

The rate of BW sector installation has reached 2/month, however a steady
rate of 3/month will be needed in order to complete Side A by the end of
September 06. The inventory of parts needed for the BW sectors is being
closely managed. The most problematic items are obtaining timely
delivery of BW sector aluminum and EIL4 frames. Another factor which
influences our rate of integration is the sharing of material and
personnel resources in B180, where the installations of TGC BWs, MDT BWs
and EIL4s are simultaneously being conducted. Improvements in both the
delivery of sector and frame material and the management of resources in
B180 have recently been made.

**3.5.1 MDT Pre-operations, Operations & Maintenance**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

MDT pre-operations progresses in B180. Teams from each of the US MDT
chamber construction sites are in residence at CERN. Tasks are
well-defined and expertise gained so that the sector and EIL4 assemblies
have become routine.

**3.5.1.1 MDT Pre-Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Complete all 16 EIL4       14-Mar-06      14-Apr-06        1-Aug-06       Delayed (See #1)
  MDT-TGC Assemblies                                                        

  Start SW Side C Assembly   1-May-06       \--              1-Oct-06       Delayed (See #2)
  in B191                                                                   

  Complete all 16 Sectors    30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule (See
  BW-C                                                                      #3)

  Start of Phase 111         1-Aug-06       \--              1-Aug-06       On Schedule (See
  Commissioning in UX15                                                     #4)

  Start of Phase 3           1-Aug-06       \--              1-Aug-06       On Schedule (See
  Commissioning in UX15                                                     #5)

  Complete 12 Sectors BW-A   30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule (See
                                                                            #6)

  Pre-operations of MDT      30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule (See
  Chambers - Phase 2                                                        #7)
  (Boston)                                                                  

  Pre-operations of MDT      30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule (See
  Chambers - Phase 2 (MIT)                                                  #8)

  Complete all 16 Sectors    15-Jan-07      \--              15-Jan-07      On Schedule (See
  BW-A (Additional 4)                                                       #9)
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Delayed. Two EIL4 stations (EIL4A13, EIL4C13) are now
installed in UX15, four are ready for installation (EIL4A05, EIL4C05,
EIL4C01, EIL4A01) and four more are being prepared for installation
(Sectors 1 and 9).

**Note #2**  The SW is significantly delayed - primarily due to the
delays of integrating the ECTs. The plan for the SW construction is to
start the tooling construction and commissioning in B191 after ECTA
exits for its 80-degree cold test in Jun-06. Following the completion of
ECTC in late summer 06 the SW team will start installation of chambers
in the first SW.

**Note #3**  The progress-to-date extrapolates to this completion date.
The top watched item is the completion of the delivery of the last small
wheel sector.

**Note #4**  This is the best estimate at the present time. The critical
path for the MDT installation and commissioning is set by the
installation and commissioning of TGC1 that has to go in first.

**Note #5**  Scheduled date is the best estimate at this time. However,
the TGC1 C-side wheel has to be installed first and many items of
tooling need to be designed, constructed and commissioned. Discussions
have started with the ATLAS commissioners and within the US community on
how to organize this task.

**Note #6**  A plan has been made and is being closely watched that has
the completion of Side A at the end of Sep-06. In order to succeed the
timely delivery of aluminum for the sectors is needed as well as
additional storage space in B180. The concrete blocks for the storage
space are being rigged into place.

**Note #7**  Steve Ahlen has developed an analysis to find tracks in the
random trigger data routinely taken during Phase II commissioning. From
these data, chamber misalignments and various operational parameters and
anomalies have been observed and studied.

**Note #8**  A student from MIT has been working on the Phase II
commissioning of MDTs in B180 since November. He will be in residence at
CERN until the end of June.

**Note #9**  Plans are in place to finish the BW-A by October 06 - a
tenable plan assuming the availability of sector aluminum and Pakistani
crew.

**3.5.2 CSC Pre-Operations, Operations & Maintenance**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

All CSCs have been shipped to CERN along with all on-chamber electronics
and test equipment. The Phase I integration station is being setup in
B184 and the BNL, UAz crews are getting started. To do is the test the
chambers and alignment components following their integration with the
support frames.

**3.5.2.1 CSC Pre-Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Start CSC Installation &   1-Jun-06       1-Jun-06         1-Oct-06       Delayed (See #1)
  Phase 11 Commissioning on                                                 
  SW in Bldg 191                                                            
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Delayed because the ECTs are delayed in B191. The
integration of the CSCs with their spacer frames has started at CERN.
This work is expected to be complete by 30-Aug-06, well in time for the
SW installation.

**3.5.3 Alignment System Pre-Oper.\'s, Operations & Maintenance**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

The commissioning of alignment parts continues ahead of the critical
path. A good team has been formed at CERN to carry out this work.

**3.5.4 Muon Endcap Common Costs**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

On track and closely monitored. A means to pay for gas consumption has
to be worked out.

**3.5.4.2 Muon Endcap Common Costs Operations**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

The cost of gas for the MDT Phase II commissioning has been estimated.
To date the actual costs are lower than expected. The gas consumption is
being closely monitored.

**3.5.5 Monitoring & Calibration**

**Frank Taylor (MIT)**

Work continues on setting up the monitoring and calibration centers at
Michigan and Boston. Bing Zhou, UoM, is playing a key role.

##  {#section-3 .unnumbered}

## 3.6 M&O Trigger {#mo-trigger .unnumbered}

**3.6 Subsystem Manager\'s Summary**

**Andrew Lankford (University of California, Irvine)**

Pre-operations activities consisted of hardware and software
commissioning support of detector commissioning and of commissioning of
other TDAQ subsystems, and operations of the Pre-series system.
Operations activities consisted of hardware and software maintenance and
routine operations.

**3.6.1 Pre-Operations**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Begin Operations           1-Mar-06       \--              1-Mar-06       Completed (See
  Supervisor RoI Builder                                                    #1)
  Support                                                                   
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  Operations of the Supervisor RoI Builder installed in the
Pre-Series are now being supported.

**Andrew Lankford (University of California, Irvine)**

Pre-Ops Hardware Commissioning

The TTC system for the Pre-Series was commissioned. Work progressed on
commissioning TDAQ networks.

Pre-Ops Software Commissioning

Dataflow, Event Filter, and HLT software were commissioned on the
Pre-series system. Automated test procedures were commissioned.

Pre-ops Detector Support

Support for detector monitoring continued. Readout Subsystems for the
Tile and Liquid Argon calorimeters were commissioned.

Pre-Ops TDAQ Support

Readout Links were tested. A new HLT release was tested, and many HLT
algorithms were debugged.

Pre-ops Operations

The Pre-series system was operated in support of pre-operations
activities.

**3.6.1.1 Supervisor RoI Builder**

**Robert Blair (ANL)**

Jim Schlereth implemented a new LVL1 source option in Jan 2006 for the
supervisors. This would service a new type of LVL1 source which would
originate from a Local Trigger Processor and would consist of a group of
LVL1 Event IDs contained in a message handled by the Data Collection
message passing system. The type can be selected at configuration time
just as the other LVL1 Source type options. This will be required for
early operation when LVL1 will not be available or possible.

Changes were made to incorporate new Finite State Machine (FSM)
transitions in Feb 2006. Both the Supervisor and RoI Builder
applications are run controlled and must respond to FSM transitions to
be synchronized with the other applications which they must interact
(L2PU, DFM and LVL1 trigger). The major transition affected was the
STOP, for which various checks were added to attempt to flush all
outstanding events from buffers before a timeout expired, in which case
the application would issue a warning, but make the transition
gracefully.

**3.6.1.3 Programming Support**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Operation of a multi-node  30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  test bed for                                                              
  integ/testing/debug &                                                     
  performance Optimization                                                  
  of HLT code (Wisc)                                                        

  Support of HLT SW          30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  installation in point                                                     
  1(HLT installation image)                                                 
  (Wisc)                                                                    
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Bernard Pope (Michigan State University)**

Gianluca Comune has continued to work in HLT/PESA core software
development. He has completely rewritten the \"Steering\" infrastructure
in order to improve performance and add new important features like a
new improved \"data navigation\" mechanism, a \"Trigger data
persistency\" approach and infrastructure that allows one to \"record\"
Trigger objects in the Trigger data stream in order to allow
trigger-aware physics analyses. This is the major goal for release 12
and the CSC data challenge that will be performed based on this release.
(See "Steering the ATLAS High Level Trigger", G. Comune et al.,
CERN-ATL-COM-DAQ-2006-016. This paper was presented at the CHEP06
(Mumbai) Online computing session by G. Comune.)

At the same time Comune has invented and developed an approach to
Trigger physics performance optimization that is now become the official
mechanism in the Trigger collaboration and it is going to be used by all
physicists interested in assessing the impact of online selection
strategies on their physics analyses.

Unfortunately, Comune left ATLAS at the end of March 2006. It is hoped
that the new MSU postdoc Alessandro Di Mattia will continue Comune's
work on the Steering infrastructure.

DCS for TDAQ racks is ready to be moved to SDX1 and installation was
planned in February. The note on DAQ/HLT rack DCS was updated. Ermoline
reported on the status of rack DCS during the DAQ/HLT-I Coordination
meeting in February. The initial installation is foreseen in USA15 where
the coolers have already been delivered. An abstract of the \"ATLAS
DAQ/HLT rack DCS\" was submitted to the Pisa Meeting on Advanced
Detectors. The updated DCS note was also discussed with David Francis
and Helmet Burckhart and their comments have been included in the
revised note.

**Andrew Lankford (University of California, Irvine)**

Pre-Ops Hardware Commissioning

Unel commissioned the first TTC (Timing, Trigger, and Control) crate.
Ciobataru used a custom network monitoring tool to map the configuration
of the ATLAS networks at Point 1. He also started a study of a
commercial monitoring tool (sFlow) that is capable of examining network
traffic and monitor traffic patterns. This study involves development of
software to analyze sFlow data.

Pre-Ops Software Commissioning

Wheeler studied the efficiency of the new protocols into and out of the
Event Filter for very small events (as will be present during detector
commissioning). Unel continued analysis of data from Dataflow
performance measurements on the Pre-series system, including studies of
the output of data through the SFO (Subfarm output) subsystem and of the
impact of Monitoring. Wheeler started preparations for a round-the-clock
shakedown of the Pre-series system to study completeness of
functionality and operational issues. This will be followed by a week of
24x7 operations in April. She also investigated use of a cluster at
Manchester for future Large Scale Tests. Bold tested the impact of data
corruption on the HLT Steering controller.

Pre-ops Detector Support

Kolos continued to lead the Monitoring group as it defined new
monitoring tools required. Unel commissioned Readout Subsystems for the
Tile and Liquid Argon Calorimeters.

Pre-Ops TDAQ Support

Unel participated in studies of the Readout Link XOFF mechanism and
other Readout Links studies.

Pre-ops Operations

Unel coordinated operation of the Pre-series system. Stancu participated
in network operations of the Pre-series system.

**Werner Wiedenmann (University of Wisconsin, Madison)**

Tests were run on the pre-series using the newly developed Python
scripts for automatic testing. dos Anjos provided support for these
scripts. With the feedback from tests in the pre-series the logging and
debugging facilities of these scripts were improved and automatic
ssh-key scanning and agent checking was added.

Tests were performed with HLT release HLT-03-00-03. Problems were
debugged with the initialization of some services in multiple threads
and the reconfiguration of the Athena Application Mgr when cycling
through states.

Together with developers from different detector communities problems in
the

HLT algorithms T2Calo, muFast and TrigL2CosmicMuon were debugged.
Together with developers from event filter a problem in reading and
writing the Level-2 result in bytestream data was found.

**3.6.2 Operations**

**Andrew Lankford (University of California, Irvine)**

Ops Hardware Maintenance

Development of test platforms for the RoI Builder progressed.
Maintenance was performed on the test platform for networking.

Ops -- Software Maintenance

Improvements were made to many software packages, including RoI Builder
and LVL2 Supervisor applications, Monitoring software, several HLT
infrastructure packages, and database configuration, as well as for
release testing.

Ops - Operations

Operations of installed infrastructure at Point 1 and of TDAQ test labs
continued. Tests of round-the-clock (24x7) operation using the
Pre-series system are planned.

**3.6.2.3 Programming Support**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Support event read out     30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  library for detector                                                      
  commissioning & Cosmic Run                                                
  (Wisc)                                                                    

  Support for HLT            30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  Application Framework for                                                 
  detector commissioning &                                                  
  Cosmic Run (Wisc)                                                         

  Support of Level 2         30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  Framework for detector                                                    
  commissioning & Cosmic Run                                                
  (PSC) (Wisc)                                                              
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Bernard Pope (Michigan State University)**

DCS for TDAQ racks is ready to be moved to SDX1 and installation was
planned in February. The note on DAQ/HLT rack DCS was updated. Ermoline
reported on the status of rack DCS during the DAQ/HLT-I Coordination
meeting in February. The initial installation is foreseen in USA15 where
the coolers have already been delivered. An abstract of the \"ATLAS
DAQ/HLT rack DCS\" was submitted to the Pisa Meeting on Advanced
Detectors. The updated DCS note was also discussed with David Francis
and Helmet Burckhart and their comments have been included in the
revised note.

**Andrew Lankford (University of California, Irvine)**

Ops Hardware Maintenance

Ciobataru and Stancu worked on maintenance of the test platform used for
switch evaluation and testing. This work included incorporating features
that will allow study of networks in the presence of packet loss.

Ops -- Software Maintenance

Kolos made improvements to some Monitoring software tools in response to
feedback from detector communities. He began preparations for the next
TDAQ software release, including development of a testing procedure.
Kolos implemented a new scheme for using Monitoring services to
distribute events for Online Monitoring from ATLAS to the computing
cluster at CERN. Bold and Kolos participated in development of a naming
convention for all Monitoring histograms, for instance for trigger
algorithm developers and for detector groups. Bold documented the naming
convention. He updated the Histogramming services to check conformance
with the convention and to adapt to changes in the interfaces of the
GAUDI framework. He added interactive commands support to the Histogram
Dispatcher (histmon) package, as well as performing maintenance and
testing. Wheeler and Negri participated in the formation of a new Event
Filter Performance and Measurements Group, which began development of an
exhaustive set of tests and measurements of Event Filter code in each
major TDAQ software release. This group will also be involved in Large
Scale Tests later this year. Unel updated the database generation
package, in preparation for the next TDAQ software release and to create
the ROS commissioning databases. He began participation in Global
Release Coordination.

Ops - Operations

Unel coordinated system administration activities at Point 1 and in TDAQ
test labs. Stancu worked with the Sysadmin group in establishing the
scheme for allocating IP subnets in the TDAQ network, including a scheme
for assigning multiple IP addresses to the same network interface. Many
personnel contributed to preparation for a test on the Pre-series system
of round-the-clock operations.

**Werner Wiedenmann (University of Wisconsin, Madison)**

dos Anjos provided for the Level-2 processing unit in the TDAQ
repository fixes for compilation with gcc-3.4.4 and for changes in the
ROS schema. For the event format package the automatic unit test suite
was improved and several bug fixes were applied to the event format
library.

For the forthcoming TDAQ release 1.6.0 dos Anjos restructured the
Level-2 packages to reduce dependencies. Files which are necessary for
exporting the Level-2 API have been separated from files which are only
necessary for package implementation. Unified interfaces to the HLT
algorithm framework were defined for Level-2 and Event Filter and the
abstract interfaces were placed in the TDAQ common repository. The
Level-2 packages were modified to adhere to these new HLT interface
definitions. With the introduction of templated applications also the
packages had to be updated to comply to changes in the application
control interface.

For development and testing with the offline release series 11 the
l2pu_test application and the athenaMT script were updated. For the HLT
framework the PSC were updated to support recent changes in the offline
framework and to allow cycling through the TDAQ state machine. The event
loop manager was rewritten to inherit from a common component for
Level-2 and Event Filter. Both systems can extend this common component
with system specific actions. athenaMT supports now most of the command
line switches which are also used with the standard offline application
\"Athena\". To simplify code maintenance the implementation of the PSC
which contained also an interface to the online monitoring was
refactored. The documentation for athenaMT was updated to reflect all
the changes. The \"new athenaMT\" was presented in different meetings to
developers.

To work with offline release 11.5.0 the setup and build of HLT with
project builds was investigated. Updates to the PSC and python
configuration scripts were necessary to comply with changes in offline.

**[3.10 M&O Technical Coordination]{.underline}**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Commission Round Special   30-Jun-05      \--              30-Jul-06      Delayed (See #1)
  Scaffolding used for                                                      
  Calorimeter in situ                                                       
  installation                                                              

  Commission Round           30-Sep-05      \--              30-Jul-06      Delayed (See #2)
  Scaffolding on the Tile                                                   
  Front Face                                                                

  30% Barrel Muon Installed  30-Mar-06      \--              30-Mar-06      Completed

  Finish Round Scaffolding   30-Mar-06      \--              30-Mar-06      Delayed (See #3)
  Production                                                                

  Complete EC-C Mechanical   30-Apr-06      \--              30-Apr-06      On Schedule
  Assembly                                                                  

  Start Big Wheel Assembly   30-Apr-06      \--              30-Apr-06      On Schedule
  Side C                                                                    

  Barrel Toroid Field Test   30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule

  Complete EC-A Mechanical   30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  Assembly                                                                  

  Solenoid Field test        31-Jul-06      \--              31-Jul-06      On Schedule

  Install Barrel Part of     30-Aug-06      \--              30-Aug-06      On Schedule
  Inner Detector                                                            
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1-2**  Prototype was tested. Currently in production. Will need
the EC to commission them.\
\
**Note #3**  Schedule changed

**Subsystem Manager\'s Summary David Lissauer (Brookhaven National
Laboratory)**

**ATLAS Upgrade:** Meetings were held with the ATLAS management (Peter
Jenni, Steinar Stapnes, and Marzio Nessi) to discuss the organization of
the ATLAS upgrade. They offered me the responsibility for organizing the
execution of the ATLAS upgrade. In the next EB I will be appointed as
the ATLAS Upgrade Project Office Leader. This is a major responsibility
as the ATLAS upgrade is expected to include a complete replacement of
the ATLAS Inner Detector and major upgrade of the Liquid Argon
calorimeter. The upgrade will need to be organized much more tightly
than the current ATLAS experiment, as it will involve an ongoing
experiment. A large fraction of the responsibility will be with outside
collaborators and CERN will have a major role in support of the Project
Office and the upgrade in general. One of the first tasks will be to
assemble the team, which we plan to recruit from the major collaborating
labs and CERN. During April 2006 I went to the Rutherford Lab, NEKHEF
among other places to see the level of support that we can expect. The
US has an opportunity here to play a major role in the ATLAS upgrade --
this effort is well advanced in the US.

**ATLAS as built:** Discussions on how to collect the detail information
and update the models for ATLAS as built took place. Sue Duffin (BNL)
has started to summarize the information starting from the Barrel
Calorimeter position and the Barrel Toroid.

**Barrel Calorimeter Services & Commissioning:** Installation of
services is continuing. The Calorimeter (both Tile and LAr) cables are
completed. Liquid Argon is being delivered to the underground storage
tanks in preparation for the calorimeter cool down and filling. The
Inner detector services are being installed slowly the delay is caused
mostly by the availability of cables and the access difficulty.

**Barrel Muon Chamber Installations:** Barrel Muon chambers installation
is slowly gaining speed. We expect to finish the installation of sector
12 and 14 by early March 2006 and the installation of sector 2 and 8
have started.

**BCAM Installation:** A monitoring system to determine the position of
the EC calorimeter relative to the Barrel is being installed. It
consists of a number of BCAM cameras produced at Brandeis University.
The installation of the cameras on the barrel took place and discussions
on the installation of the reflectors on the EC took place.

**EC-A Calorimeter:** The mechanical assembly of EC-A has started. The
saddle with the first 18 Tile modules has been lowered to the pit and
placed on the truck for assembly. The LAr is expected to come down in a
few weeks and the mechanical assembly was expected to be finished by
June 2006.

**EC-C Calorimeter Placement and Assembly:** The EC -Calorimeter has
been moved to a position inside of the Barrel Toroid. This will allow
starting the preparation for a Big Wheel installation on side C. In the
mean time preparation for EC-A assembly is on going and EC-A assembly is
expected to be ready before the end of May. In parallel installation of
services on EC-C has started.

**EC Calorimeter Docking:** Meetings took place to finalize the
procedure for docking the end cap calorimeter. This involves, in
addition, the procedure to assume good contact and position
reproducibility between openings, and also the installation of the shims
on the EC Gap calorimeter in order to minimize the gap between the
barrel and EC. BNL and CERN have now calculated using the latest survey
results for the individual gap variations, and the shims are being
prepared for the first docking. At which time we will leave a slightly
larger gap than we hope to finally have. After the first docking we will
re-shim to minimize the gap. The level of the gap we can afford to leave
is determined by the expected effect of the magnetic field during the
field measurements.

**EC Muon Integration:** Discussions took place to determine the small
wheel and JD integration and assembly status. The project is behind
schedule and we will have a major review of the JD small wheel assembly
and installation in the near future.

**JD Assembly:** Discussions were held between A. Gordeev and C. Pai
from BNL on how to update the design of the JD Wheel. The procedure for
turning the JD disk is nearly complete. The production of the tooling
has started and next week the CERN safety group will review the
procedures. We expect that one will be able to turn the JD disk in a few
weeks.

**LHC Schedule:** Had some interesting discussions with the machine
people in charge of the machine installation. They have on the order of
450 magnets in the tunnel with another 1300 to go. The rate now is
20/week and they expect to bring it up to 24 per week. This means that
the magnet installation will be completed in May '07. They have on order
a partial connection of 200 magnets but not a single magnet that has
been tested completely and accepted. The effort here is going to be
increased significantly and will allow under very optimistic assumptions
to have first beam in early '08. At that time the machine will probably
not be completed, for example, some collimators will be missing -- which
mean that only low luminosity running will be possible. (That is all we
can probably absorb at the start). After a short run the plan is to have
a shut down for some months to complete the machine and restart with
high luminosity. The new schedule with new dates will come out in
June/July '07.

**Magnetic Field Workshop:** In preparation for the magnetic field
mapping that will take place in June, we discussed some of the
implications of having the JD in place for the measurements. Detail
calculations of the field with and without the JD disc have been
performed and the result shows minor differences due to the JD. It was
agreed that we would use only one JD during the field measurements
essentially to confirm the results of the calculations.

**Pixel Installation:** I convened a task force to study which side the
pixel insertion should take place. The task force studies have been
concluded in a meeting with the decision that the pixels will be
installed from side C. The next step is to understand access conflicts
with the big wheels assembly that will take place in the coming weeks.

**Technical Management Board:** The TMB meeting reviewed the status of
the ATLAS installation and production. In general there is good progress
and actions are being taken to correct slippages in the assembly of
certain items. Corrective actions that were taken during the month of
April 2007 include increase resources for end cap MDT and TGC sectors
assembly, more effort on Pixel assembly and corrective actions.

**[4.1 Inner Detector Upgrade R&D]{.underline}**

**Subsystem Manager\'s Summary Abraham Seiden (UCSC)**

This quarter work has continued on new detector types, electronics,
development of stave structures and optoelectronics. In additional a
number of Upgrade proposals have been submitted to the ATLAS Upgrade
steering group to be incorporated more clearly into ATLAS planning.
Also, an Upgrade project within the Technical Coordination at CERN has
been set up to lead the infrastructure work.

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  System Design for GOL      1-May-06       \--              1-May-06       On Schedule
  finished (SMU)                                                            

  Pin Candidates Identified  6-May-06       \--              6-May-06       On Schedule
  (Oklahoma)                                                                

  Submission of SiGe test    10-May-06      \--              10-May-06      On Schedule
  chip (UCSC)                                                               

  Finish fab of 3-D          30-May-06      \--              30-May-06      On Schedule
  detectors (Hawaii)                                                        

  Preliminary Wire Link      31-May-06      \--              31-May-06      On Schedule
  Tested (Ohio State)                                                       

  Prelinary Fiber Link       31-May-06      \--              31-May-06      On Schedule
  Tested  (Ohio State)                                                      

  Working Stave (LBL)        1-Jun-06       \--              1-Jun-06       On Schedule

  First Pin Irradiation      30-Jun-06      \--              30-Jun-06      On Schedule
  (Oklahoma)                                                                

  Measurement of 3-D sensors 30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  (New Mexico)                                                              
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**4.1.1 Detectors**

**Hartmut Sadrozinski (UCSC)**

4.1.1 Detectors

4.1.1.1 Innermost Pixel Layer

Fabrication of 3D pixel sensors for bump bonding to ATLAS readout chips
is ongoing with 10 wafers in production. Large leakage currents were
suppressed with forming gas anneal. Imperfect contacts were observed due
to thin insulating films on the metals, and are being investigated.

Charge collection efficiency tests were done with a 1060 nm IR laser on
ATLAS-pitch sensors irradiated with reactor neutrons. At 8.6 x 10^15^
n~eq~/cm^2^, the collection efficiency with a 3-electrode per pixel
sensor was 35%. The charge collection efficiency was found to be
approximately inversely proportional to the fluence.

UNM tested 3D sensors (a 200 micron by 100 micron n-to-n pitch with p
columns midway between) with an IR laser, concentrating on the magnitude
and uniformity of the collected signal and the depletion voltage. The
depletion voltage increases from 15 V pre-radiation to 125V after a
fluence of 10^15^/cm^2^ 55 MeV protons. Charge collection efficiency is
about 88% for that fluence. The p-electrode shows very uniform signal
collection within the pixel cell, while the n-electrode shows poor
isolation between neighboring electrodes due to the oxide surface
charge.

4.1.1.2 Investigation of Strip Technology

The measurements of electrical parameters (interstrip isolation and
capacitance) and breakdown behavior on p-type test strip detector, as
built and after moderate gamma irradiation, is yielding the first
results. The aim is to evaluate the differences between Float Zone (FZ)
and Magnetic Czochralski (MCz) bulk material, and different treatment of
the surface (different p-spray doses).

A decision was made to fabricate the next batch of test detectors with
combined p-stop and p-spray to improve pre- and post-rad performance
simultaneously.

The test set-up for charge collection efficiency measurements using a
source is being exercised for both positive and negative signals.

The design and layout of new 3 cm long detectors to be manufactured on
6\" wafers by a commercial manufacturer was finished and the design
transferred to Micron Semiconductors for initial design checking.

4.1.1.3 Short Strips

Manual probing of n-type stripixel detectors has been completed and
three detectors have acceptable behavior. The manual probing is being
used to pre-select detectors prior to mounting on detector motherboards.
Manual probing of p-type wafers will resume this summer.

Industrial production of 15 motherboards has begun in Milano.

Final layout of the Viking readout board is complete and its production
is to follow that of the motherboards in Milano.

Geometric and performance parameters have been supplied to Hamamatsu for
production of short strip detectors for stave development.

**4.1.1.1 Innermost Pixel Layer**

**Maurice Garcia-Sciveres (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

3-D Sensor studies:

Testing with pixel electronics: A flip-chip assembly of a 2005 3-D
sensor with an FE-I3 pixel chip was received at LBNL (May 2006) after
neutron irradiation carried out in Prague in 2005. This sensor had
internal shorts and could not be depleted when it was first assembled.
The neutron irradiation was done to type-invert the n-bulk and therefore
to have a depletion zone around the n+ electrodes even with no bias
voltage. This was successful. It is still not possible to apply more
than 3V bias due to the internal shorts, but even with such low voltage
the sensor is now sensitive to Am^241^ irradiation and the correct
charge peak is seen by the chip.

**Alex Grillo (UCSC)**

For Sherwood Parker - U of Hawaii

1\. Fabrication of ATLAS pixel sensors for bump bonding to readout chips

The initial goal, after yield and lab tests, is to place single-chip
detectors in a beam line for an ATLAS / FP420 CERN beam test.

By 1 Jan., 10 wafers, having test devices and ATLAS pixel-pitch sensors
with sets of 2, 3, and 4 signal and bias electrodes per pixel, had been
processed to the point where back-side doping, oxide bonding to a
support wafer, and field oxide growth, among other steps, had been
completed, and one set of electrode holes had been etched, doped, and
filled with polycrystalline silicon. (Note: Each wafer will have quite a
few more sensors than are planned to be bump-bonded for the beam test.)

During the following 3 months the second set of holes was etched, doped,
and filled. A special layer of test aluminum was deposited and patterned
on 3 of the wafers. It was designed to contact all electrodes, but in
large groups, so testing could be done with a reasonable number of probe
points while keeping enough subdivision to provide diagnostic
information. The first thing seen was large leakage currents along the
edges - something not seen before. However, when the next normal step in
the fabrication process was run, a forming gas anneal, the currents went
back to normal. This observation led to experimenting with some of the
parameters of that anneal.

Further tests showed two of the wafers had imperfect contacts, as if
there was an insulating film between the top of the electrodes and the
metal layer, similar to what had been seen with devices from an earlier
run. The other wafer did not have such large regions of poor contact,
but may have had them in limited regions. The test metal was removed and
visual evidence of a dielectric film was seen. Etching steps were tried
on this layer and the test metal was replaced. Improvement was seen in
some, but not all contacts. (Analysis tests should next be run to
determine whether this is an oxide or nitride layer.)

2\. Irradiation results.

Irradiation with reactor neutrons and tests of ATLAS-pitch sensors were
performed, and tests started on sensors irradiated to a level of bulk
radiation damage equivalent to 3.7, 5.98, and 8.6 x 10^15^ 1 MeV
equivalent neutrons per sq. cm. - so up to approximately 1.6 x 10^16^
protons per sq. cm - an exposure equivalent to about 28 years at 4 cm.
and a luminosity of 10^34^. Charge collection efficiency tests were done
with a 1.060 micron infra-red laser having a spot size of 500 microns at
-10 C. At 8.6 x 10^15^, the collection efficiency with a 3-electrode per
pixel sensor was 35%. The charge collection efficiency for this data set
was approximately proportional to 1 / fluence.

While neutrons provide a good test of bulk damage radiation hardness, we
should also do similar ones using charged particles and with an applied
bias voltage during the irradiation to test for effects of oxide damage.

For Sally Seidel - U of New Mexico

UNM activities during the period January 1, 2006 through March 31, 2006
concentrated on laser testing of the 3D sensor. These tests included
measurements of signal collection magnitude and uniformity and depletion
voltage. Preliminary results were presented by Martin Hoeferkamp at the
International Workshop on 3D and p-type Detectors in Trento, Italy, on
February 13, 2006.

Signal collection and depletion voltage were measured by completely
flooding the 3d sensor chip with a uniform 1064 nm laser spot and
scanning the bias voltage from zero to beyond the full depletion point.
The signal pulse heights from the n-electrode and the p-electrode arrays
were read out on an oscilloscope as the laser was pulsed with a fast
(0.5 ns risetime) short duration (100 ns) pulser. Three 3d sensors of
the design type known as single_off14_100 were tested. The geometry for
these utilizes a 200 micron by 100 micron n-to-n pitch with p columns
midway between. Of the three, one was a non-irradiated sensor, one a
sensor irradiated to a fluence equivalent to 2 x 10^14^/cm^2^ 55 MeV
protons, and one a sensor irradiated to 10^15^/cm^2^ 55 MeV
proton-equivalent. The most highly irradiated sensor was measured at
-20C, the others at 0C.

The signal collection results, normalized to the non-irradiated values,
are 95% for the 2 x 10^14^/cm^2^ sensor and 88% for the 10^15^/cm^2^
sensor. Depletion voltages are about 15V in the non-irradiated case,
about 58V for the 2 x 10^14^/cm^2^ sensor, and about 125V for the
10^15^/cm^2^ sensor. During the position scans the 1064 nm laser was
focused to a spot of diameter approximately 10 microns. This laser spot
was scanned across one electrode cell while the output was measured with
a Picoprobe, to characterize the uniformity of signal collection. As of
March 31 this test had only been completed on the non-irradiated sensor.
Results on the p-electrode show very uniform signal collection within
the pixel cell in both the x- and y-position scans. The signal drops to
50%, as expected, as the laser reaches a point halfway to the next
electrode. The n-electrode scan shows poor isolation between neighboring
electrodes due to the oxide surface charge. This was confirmed by
leakage current measurements.

**4.1.1.2 Investigation of Strip Technology**

**Hartmut Sadrozinski (UCSC)**

The measurements of electrical parameters (interstrip isolation and
capacitance) and breakdown behavior on p-type test detector, as built
and after moderate gamma irradiation, is yielding the first results. The
aim is to evaluate the differences between Float Zone (FZ) and Magnetic
Czochralski (MCz) bulk material, and different treatment of the surface
(different p-spray doses). A decision was made to fabricate the next
batch of test detectors with combined p-stop and p-spray to improve pre-
and post-rad performance simultaneously.

The test set-up for charge collection efficiency measurements using a
source is being exercised for both positive and negative signals.

The design and layout of new 3 cm long detectors to be manufactured on
6\" wafers by a commercial manufacturer was finished and the design
transferred to Micron Semiconductors for initial checking.

**4.1.1.3 Short Strips**

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Purchase Order Released    30-May-06      30-May-06        8-Jun-06       Delayed (See #1)
  (SB)                                                                      
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Note #1**  P.O. should be going out within a week. P.O. was delayed
several weeks

at Stony Brook while awaiting approvals.

**David Lynn (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

Stripixel Detectors

Manual probing of n-type stripixel detectors has been completed and
three detectors have acceptable behavior. The manual probing is being
used to pre-select detectors prior to mounting on detector motherboards.
Manual probing of p-type wafers will resume this summer.

Industrial production of 15 motherboards has begun in Milano.

Final layout of the Viking readout board is complete and its production
is to follow that of the motherboards in Milano.

Short Strips for Stave development

We have chosen Hamamatsu to produce the detectors. Geometric and
performance parameters have been supplied to Hamamatsu. Paperwork for
order has been submitted through Stony Brook University but is currently
awaiting final approval.

**4.1.2 Front-End Electronics**

**Alex Grillo (UCSC)**

Irradiations on the 130 nm pixel test chip were carried out at the LBNL
88\" cyclotron with both 55MeV protons and 32MeV light ion cocktail for
SEU studies. Total dose achieved with protons was approximately 70MRad.
No changes were observed at the few % level after such dose. Results of
the SEU tests are still being analyzed.

SiGe test structures from three IBM technologies were irradiated with
neutrons at Ljubljana but delays in returning the parts to Santa Cruz
have resulted in no post-rad testing as yet. Test structures for the
gamma irradiation have been electrically tested and they will be
irradiated at the cobalt source at BNL in early May. The design of the
demonstration IC on the IHP technology is progressing well and is on
track for submission prior to the deadline of 18-Apr.

**4.1.2.1 Deep Sub Micron for Pixels**

**Maurice Garcia-Sciveres (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

Deep Submicron electronics for pixel upgrade

0.13µm pixel test chip: Irradiations were carried out at the LBNL 88\"
cyclotron with both 55MeV protons and 32MeV light ion cocktail for SEU
studies. Total dose achieved with protons was approximately 70MRad. No
changes were observed at the few % level after such dose. The chip
contains digital register chains using different flip-flop designs that
were tested for SEU tolerance. Tests were carried out with ion beams up
to LET of 20MeV/mg. Results are still being analyzed.

**4.1.2.2 SiGe for Strips**

**Alex Grillo (UCSC)**

SiGe test structures from three IBM technologies were irradiated with
neutrons at Ljubljana. We expected to receive back at Santa Cruz in
March or early April for post-radiation electrical testing, however,
there is a problem finding a shipping company that will handle the
irradiated parts. Even though we have done this many times before, now
that Slovenia has joined the EU there are more bureaucratic difficulties
in handling these types of shipments and our collaborators in Ljubljana
have not been able to find a company to make the shipment. This is still
a problem. In the mean time, these parts are being stored at cold
temperature to minimize any annealing of the damage.

Test structures for the gamma irradiation have been electrically tested
and they will be irradiated at the cobalt source at BNL in early May.
The test structures for proton irradiations are being electrically
tested now. That irradiation is expected to take place at CERN in June
when the PS turns on.

The design of the demonstration IC on the IHP technology is progressing
well but is not yet complete. Deadline for submission is 18-Apr and we
are confident we will meet that. All the parts of the design are
actually complete. Final checks are underway.

**4.1.3 Optical Readout**

**4.1.3.1 Diode Receivers**

**Flera Rizatdinova (Oklahoma State)**

The TrueLight PIN Diode array is a natural candidate for the first
irradiation session. The equipment (fibers, PCBs) necessary for the
prototype test stand has been purchased in preparation for the radiation
test that will be later this summer (August).

**Patrick Skubic (University of Oklahoma)**

To accomplish our goal to identify PIN arrays that can survive the SLHC
radiation environment we are performing a literature search to identify
possible vendors. We have received a sample of two single-channel
InGaAs/InP devices from Fermionics for further evaluation. Such devices
would be used by ATLAS only if silicon devices were found to be
inadequate. In preparation for the radiation test later this summer, we
have purchased needed components including fiber cables and connectors.
We have received a test stand system from Ohio State U. and are
currently setting it up. This will allow us to make baseline BER
measurements for single-channel devices for comparison with measurement
made by other institutions.

**4.1.3.2 Fiber Drivers**

**Jingbo Ye (Southern Methodist University)**

The goal of this project is to evaluate the CERN GOL chip both in lab
and in radiation environments. We have designed and fabricated the test
boards which include a FPGA based overall control board that generates
test patterns, performs error detection, and monitors beam conditions;
the GOL carrier board; an adaptor board for long range (a few meters)
signal transmission for the radiation test; some driver/receiver boards;
and a dedicated power supply board for multi-channel (up to 64) current
measurement during irradiation. All the boards are now under test in
lab. Preliminary results show that they all function. More detailed
tests await the software development in the FPGA. After this the in lab
test on the GOL will be carried out. We are on schedule as in the
proposal we sent in.

**K.K. Gan (Ohio State University)**

One of the goals of the R&D program is to identify the PIN and VCSEL
arrays that can survive in the intense SLHC radiation environment. We
have identified four vendors who fabricate arrays with suitable
specifications and have purchased samples from each. To establish
baselines for future array evaluation, we studied the optical and
electrical performance of several pre-packaged single channel devices
from the array vendors. The next step is to study the arrays.

**4.1.3.4 Multiplexers and Interconnect Circuits**

**K.K. Gan (Ohio State University)**

Another important goal of the R&D program is to measure the bandwidth of
the infrastructure of the current pixel optical link. The two critical
components in the infrastructure are micro twisted pair cables and fiber
ribbons. The former transmit the LVDS signals between the optical
components and the pixel modules. The latter transmit optical signals
between the optical components and the counting room. The ribbons
consist of several meters of radiation-hard, low bandwidth SIMM fibers
spliced to about 100 m of radiation tolerant, medium bandwidth GRIN
fibers. At the SLHC, we expect to transmit data at \~ 1 Gb/s,
significantly more than the current 40 Mb/s.

We have constructed a prototype test system to measure the bandwidths of
the critical infrastructure components and have measured the rise and
fall times versus cable length of several types of fiber and micro
twisted pair. Also we have studied "eye" diagrams of pseudo random bit
streams for each cable type and length. Our preliminary conclusion is
that the micro twisted pairs can reliably transmit signals at up to 640
Mb/s and the fibers at rates greater than 1 Gb/s. Therefore the existing
infrastructure satisfies the needs of the SLHC. We are currently
constructing an improved test system for a more through study including
bit error rate testing and jitter measurements.

**4.1.4 Modules**

**4.1.4.1 Stave Structures**

**Carl Haber (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

This effort is collaboration between BNL and LBNL. The BNL group has
added physicist manpower to the effort in this period.

The effort here focused on the following fronts:

1\) Test of the first 6 module stave based upon CDF geometry but with
ATLAS electronics. Tests continued in this period with excellent noise
and uniformity observed on the stave. Somewhat better even than when
modules are pre-tested individually. We attribute this improvement to
the better engineered ground and power distribution found on the stave
(relative to the module test configuration)

2\) Preparations for testing of serial power on the 6 module stave. A
new bus cable to support serial powering was designed and submitted for
fabrication. This will be tested in collaboration with the Rutherford
colleagues in early summer 2006

3\) Design of an ATLAS specific 1 meter stave. In collaboration with W.
Miller this effort has proceeded well (see 4.1.4.3)

4\) Development of DAQ for multimodule stave tests. The National
Instruments modules were obtained by BNL and LBNL. A full LabView
control package was written and is being debugged.

5\) Design of a 3 cm detector the ATLAS 1 meter stave was completed and
quotes from the vendor for fabrication were received.

6\) A proposal to carry out this stave development was written and
submitted to the ATLAS Upgrade steering group for approval

7\) Abstracts are being submitted to the IEEE NSS and the Hiroshima
meeting describing the stave development

**4.1.4.2 Hybrids**

**Carl Haber (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

Additional hybrid were assembled and tested in this period. Hybrids were
sent to RAL for testing there with serial power electronics.

A new hybrid layout was initiated with the following goals: reduce
hybrid area by \~40% or integrate serial powering into the hybrid with
no increase in area

**4.1.4.3 Cooling Channels**

**Carl Haber (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

Considerable activity continued in this area in collaboration with W.
Miller. A viable stave design was found with less than 60 microns
gravitational sag and sufficient thermal performance to meet specs.
Effort included the design and simulation of the end fixation structure
including pins and inserts. This effort is moving towards a fabrication
plan for the 1 meter stave which should result in usable structure
around the end of calendar 2006.

The proposed stave design is characterized by a particular choice for
the carbon fiber facing lay-ups, a core material, cooling tube material
and geometry, and end fixation structures.

Considerable documentation is being compiled in the form of status
reports to track this activity.

**4.1.4.4 Powering Schemes**

**Carl Haber (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

The RAL group has proposed a serial powering circuit comprised of COTS
components. It has been tested on large PC boards with existing ATLAS
SCT modules and performs well.

Working together LBNL and RAL have recast this in a miniaturized hybrid
layout which is designed to integrate directly to the existing ATLAS
hybrid. This layout is also consistent with a future DC-DC conversion
circuit as well. This powering hybrid works together with the new bus
cable design mentioned in 4.1.4.1 as well. The powering hybrid is being
fabricated in the UK and will be tested here on the second (serial
powered) stave in early summer 2006

**Maurice Garcia-Sciveres (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)**

DC-DC: A prototype DC-DC converter IC was fabricated in 0.35um HV CMOS
from Austria Microsystems. Unfortunately there is a problem with the
body contacts of the transistors in this chip and it cannot be operated
as designed in order to supply power to real devices. Work is in
progress to characterize the individual transistors in this chip and
compare to simulation.

[**4.3 Liquid Argon Upgrade R&D**]{.underline}

  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------
  **Milestone**              **Baseline**   **Previous**     **Forecast**   **Status**

  Eliminate Layer Effect     30-Sep-06      \--              30-Sep-06      On Schedule
  (Arizona)                                                                 

                                                                            
  -------------------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------- ----------------

**Francesco Lanni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

Availability of the funds in FY06 came to most institutions involved
significantly late (Mar to May 06) in some cases. Nevertheless all the
activities started successfully their programs, and achieved preliminary
results, of some relevance in few cases. In other cases activities and
milestones were reprioritized and reassigned to adjust dynamically for
the late availability: an example is 4.3.2.3 where some radiation
testing has being delayed by a few months while higher priority was
given to the design of the "full-slice" board to test dataflow issues.
In other cases recent technology advancements encouraged us to review or
enlarge the scope of the R&D plans: an example can be found in 4.3.4
where recent progress in communication systems (e.g. ATCA communication
system) would boost the performance of the signal processing in the ROD
and DAQ systems.

**4.3.1 Layer Buildup due to Radiation**

**John Rutherfoord (University of Arizona)**

US ATLAS Upgrade R&D funding for Liquid Argon was loaded into our
account at the end of March 2006, too late to spend any of it, so we
have no financial activity to report for the first quarter of calendar
year 2006.

But we have lots of activity to report, albeit less than we had planned,
for lack of funds. In December we finished our equivalent 2.3 LHC run
year (2.3 10^7^ seconds) exposure with our FCal1 electrode which had a
50 mCi beta source (90Sr) embedded in a cavity within the rod. The
activity simulated the conditions of an FCal1 electrode at EM shower
maximum at ƒØ= 4.7 at full LHC design luminosity of 10^34^ cm^-2^ s^-1^.
In addition we have two other FCal1 electrodes, one with a 2 mCi beta
source and one with no source. Except for the strength of the source all
three electrodes are identical. All three are read out. We analyzed this
data in January and, at the same time, overhauled the experimental
apparatus to allow use of a getter bequeathed to us by our colleagues at
Brookhaven. In all previous work the best argon purity we attained was
about 0.25 ppm O~2~ equivalent as measured by our oxygen gas analyzer.
(We recently purchased a new oxygen gas analyzer and now run the two in
parallel. At roughly the same time we had the old one recalibrated. The
new one measures an impurity level of about twice our old one. We
presume the calibration on one or both is off.)

We started up the system again with the new getter but using the old,
worn-out cartridge in order to test our new protocol and get used to our
procedures. The old cartridge seems to be working at some level because
the purity levels are better than we've ever seen in the past, or order
0.1 ppm as measured by the old oxygen analyzer. With this improved
purity we expected to read higher currents from our FCal-style
electrodes. But, to our surprise, the currents were significantly
smaller.

In order to understand these findings we plan to polish the electrode
rods and perform another run but with the new getter cartridge. The
surface appearance of the rods degrades with time, probably due to some
chemical reaction catalyzed by the betas. Before we start using Allain
Gonidec's filter we want to understand the performance with the
Brookhaven getter.

**4.3.2 Readout Electronics**

**4.3.2.2 Development of Analog Front-End**

**Francesco Lanni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

In preparation of the studies of the IBM SiGe devices (5AM, 7HP, 8HP
both bipolar and resistors) we organized the test-station and installed
and debug the software from USSC (B. Hackenburg). Also re-design of the
front-end preamplifier in SiGe BiCMOS technology has started. Focus was
on the 7WL technology while awaiting for the results of the irradiation
measurements. Linearity, dynamic range, noise and power consumption
issues and preliminary results prepared and presented at the SMU
workshop. Design is of course still in process.

**4.3.2.3 Digital Readout System**

**Gustaaf Brooijmans (Columbia University (Nevis Laboratory))**

To mitigate the late arrival of funds we traded some of the engineers\'
time with another project to get started (we had budgeted 50% FTE
engineering + corresponding technician help for FY06 and received about
65% of the requested funds). This allowed us to develop a design for the
digital dataflow on the next generation FEB. The design uses a small
(8x64 bits) DPRAM to multiplex the data from 4 channels (14 bits each) +
a bunch crossing code. The write and read addresses in this DPRAM are
managed by a control logic based on gray codes. From the DPRAM the data
is transmitted into a multiplexer where it is stored in triply redundant
form to be able to recover from upsets. It is then sent over an optical
link using IBM 8B10B encoding. The design uses two independent clocks:
the first is linked to the accelerator and drives the ADCs and therefore
the writing of the data into the DPRAM, while the second, derived from a
crystal running slightly faster than 4 times the bunch crossing clock,
drives the reading from the DPRAM and the transmission over the optical
link. To test this architecture, a board with an FPGA (Altera Stratix
GX) and an optical transmitter (Agilent HFBR-772) was designed and the
layout was completed. An auxiliary board needed for communications was
designed as well. Both designs were verified extensively and production
was launched (using forward funding). The assembled boards arrived at
Nevis at the end of March.

**4.3.2.4 Optical Data Link**

**Jingbo Ye (Southern Methodist University)**

We are progressing in two fronts:

1\. The evaluation of the SoS technology, ELT layout and many parameter
measurements, through a test chip we designed and submitted in October
2005. The test chips were delivered to SMU end of January 2006. The test
boards design, fabrication and chip wire-bonding took place from
November 2005 to March 2006. Now we are debugging these boards. We may
have made a mistake in the channels that measure pico-ampere transistor
off current and may have to re-make that board.

2\. The design of LoCV1, the Link-on-Chip version one. The function
blocks of LoCV1 are the PLL, the 8B/10B Encoder, the (20:1) Serializer,
the Clock Unit, and the Control/Configure Unit. We decided on one design
of the PLL (self biasing) and carried out extensive simulations on
schematics and post layout levels. According to simulation, this PLL is
fast and stable enough for LoCV1. We designed the Serializer circuit and
simulated it. It researches the required speed. The design of the Clock
Unit is under way, and will be followed by the Encoder and the
Control/configure Unit.

We are on schedule of LoCV1 as in the proposal we sent in. The
submission of LoCV1 is planned to be early next year. The evaluation and
measurements of the test chip will be carried out from now to September.

**4.3.3 Trigger**

**4.3.3.1 L1 Trigger Interface**

**Francesco Lanni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

Started to investigate if would be possible to handle all the L1
information directly at the level of Back-End (and inside the ROD)

**4.3.4 Next Generation ROD**

**4.3.4.1 Next Generation ROD (BNL)**

**Francesco Lanni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

for H. Chen

Evaluate the data rate required to transfer data from the next
generation all digital FEB to ROD, with 40MHz 16bits sampling on 128
channels, each FEB will need 81.92 Gbits/sec data throughput, we need
parallel fiber to implement this high speed data link, industry standard
parallel fiber MPO/MTP connector is a good candidate, which has 12
fibers and is about 15mm wide.

To interface with high speed optical link, SERDES is another crucial
part to the design of next generation ROD, FPGA is playing a leading
role on integration of the high speed SERDES, RocketIO X of Xilinx
provides 10.3125 Gbps transceiver and Stratix II GX from Altera has
6.375 Gbps transceiver. Considering limited board area, power
consumption and high density integration of SERDES, FPGA is better than
discrete SERDES chips.

Since next generation FEB will be fully digital, this raised another
question: can we perform level 1 trigger summing digitally? We explore
the possibility of digital trigger summing design, estimate the time
delay to perform trigger summing on ROD, to control the total delay
within the current trigger timing delay budget (2.5us) is still a big
challenge.

In system level design, ATCA is a novel platform, which complies with
the PICMG 3.0 standard. The ATCA system provides a high speed serial
switched fabric backplane, 8U size card, and an efficient cooling system
that can guarantee 200W power consumption on each slot, 3kW per chassis.
We have one ATCA crate in the lab and are going to evaluate the
performance of this system.

**4.3.5 Radiation Hard Low Voltage Power Supplies**

**4.3.5.1 Radiation Hard Low Voltage Power Supplies (BNL)**

**Francesco Lanni (Brookhaven National Laboratory)**

for J. Kierstead

The possibility of using components from Vicor Corp. factorized power
architecture has been investigated. Irradiation testing has been started
on two of the products. One was a single Vicor VTM module powered from a
regulated 48 volt power supply. The VTM module provides isolation but no
regulation. The input was monitored and the irradiation was interrupted
at selected doses when the output was measured At a total dose of
between 500-600 Grays the input current dropped to zero.

A similar evaluation board was used in a noise test. The board was used
to power the -4 volt input of a current generation FEB board to test for
coherent noise and provided a satisfactory result. In process is a
prototype board that would provide +4, -4, +11 and +6 using two pairs of
PRM and VTM Vicor modules in parallel for each voltage. This would give
data on both the behavior of the modules when operated in parallel and
on the noise characteristics in powering multiple FEB board(s).

# Financial Report (Chuck Butehorn, BNL)

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