This is an area that will require very careful design, fabrication, and testing to insure that both the readout noise and cross-talk specifications are met.

4.2 Scaled-up UCSD Controller System (default plan)

The default CCD electronics design for DEIMOS is based on a second-generation UCSD CCD controller system which is currently under development and planned for delivery in September 1995. Some of parameters of this new system are described in Table 4.1, which compares the performance characteristics of the current system with the new system. Should this new UCSD system not become available in time for the DEIMOS project, the fallback CCD electronics design for DEIMOS is a brute-force replication of the HIRES system, scaled up to handle 16 amplifiers per dewar rather than 2. We hope to avoid the fallback plan, since it results in a CCD Controller that is larger, heavier, more expensive, and generates more heat than the second-generation UCSD system. In either case, the overall system block diagram is similar, and is shown in Figure 4.1, which conservatively assumes the fallback design. If the second-generation system is used, as planned, then the number of analog boards needed per controller is half that shown in Figure 4.1.

4.2.1 System Block Diagram, Data Rates Per Channel and in Total

The major components of the CCD controller system are illustrated in Figure 4.1, as follows:

a) Preamplifier boxes (2, one per dewar)

• Multi-channel preamplifier boards (number TBD)
• Interconnect boards (number TBD)

The preamplifier boxes (sometimes referred to as the "saddlebags") are mounted astride each dewar as close as possible to the detectors. These boxes serve two functions. Signal cables coming out of each amplifier run into the multi-channel preamp boards (see Section 4.2.2 below) and are thence routed to the amplifiers on the analog boards of the CCD Controller. Incoming clock signals and bias voltages also enter on ribbon cables from the CCD Controller. These are interfaced to input pins on the detectors via "interconnect boards".

b) CCD Controllers (2, one per dewar):

• 3U format VME chassis, backplane, and power supply
• UCSD analog boards (16 each, one per amplifier if current UCSD; 8 each, one per 2 amplifiers if new UCSD)
• UCSD timing boards (1 or 2, depending on bus loading; see 4.2.3.5)
• Utility board (1 each)

Each CCD Controller chassis is located within an electrically-shielded, thermallyinsulated, and actively-cooled enclosure located in close proximity to each dewar. These chassis each contain analog, timing, and utility boards mounted on a standard 3U-format VME backplane. (Although the backplane follows the VME bus mechanical standard, the signal assignments on the backplane correspond to UCSD's custom bus specification and not to the standard VME bus signal specification.) In the current UCSD controller design, each readout amplifier reads out into its own analog board, while in the second-generation design each analog board will service two readout amplifiers. The output from up to 16 single-channel (or 8 dual-channel) analog boards can in principle be multiplexed through a single UCSD timing board (see Section 4.2.3.5 below), although under the current design there is a 0.6 µsec-per-pixel overhead for each amplifier multiplexed; hence the desirability perhaps of using two timing boards per CCD controller. The utility board is used for shutter and dewar temperature and might also be used for liquid nitrogen level-sensing and control as was done in the HIRES system.

c) VME Crate (in Control Room):

• UCSD VME interface board (2, one per dewar, if single timing board/controller; 4, two per dewar, if two timing boards/controller)
• High-speed industry-standard interface (FDDI, SCSI, etc.)
• Embedded CPU board (e.g., Force-5CE or equivalent)
• Bulk VME memory boards adequate to buffer an image

Each timing board in the CCD Controller transmits its data directly to the Control Room via a pair of fiber-optic cables contained in the telescope cable wrap. The signals are received there by an interface board, which is located inside the chassis known as the "CCD VME Crate". In the HIRES system, this crate is located on the Nasmyth platform, but we think it will be more straightforward and simpler to follow the model that was successfully used by LRIS and bring the signals directly down to the conveniently located and thermally controlled environment of the Control Room.

Since the communications protocol used by the UCSD timing board does not correspond to any industry standard, the dual fiber cable pair from each timing board must be received by an interface board, which converts the data stream to a format that can be accepted by the Instrument Computer. This interface also performs pixel descrambling, needed since the parallel readout of multiple amplifiers results in a geometrically interleaved data stream.

The exact nature of this interface is TBD and depends on evaluation of alternative interfaces that are or will become available (e.g., the "UCSD to SCSI interface" proposed by McCarthy and Stubbs, or the UCSD's S-bus interface that will be part of the secondgeneration UCSD system). In developing the budget, we have assumed the use of UCSD's existing DSP-based VME interface board, although we hope to find something better and less expensive by 1996 when it will be needed. The use of UCSD's VME board requires a separate 6U-format VME chassis (hence the name "VME Crate"). The VME Crate connects to the Instrument Computer via a high-speed industry-standard interface (e.g., FDDI) feeding a second high-speed fiber link.

The second-generation UCSD system will provide a choice between using either a VME interface board or an S-bus interface board to receive the data via the fiber-optic cable from the UCSD timing board. If UCSD's S-bus interface becomes available in time for DEIMOS, and if the instrument computers selected for DEIMOS have S-bus slots (as would be the case if Sun workstations were chosen), then this interface could provide a path for connecting the UCSD CCD Controller timing board directly to the Instrument Computer, thus eliminating the CCD VME Crate in the Control Room. There are both advantages and disadvantages to eliminating the CCD VME Crate. The major advantage is a significant reduction in expensive hardware and an overall simplification of the system architecture. The disadvantages include losing the processor in the VME Crate (thus shifting more of the processing load onto the Instrument Computer) and losing much of the software inheritance from the HIRES and LRIS CCD systems. These trade-offs will be examined more thoroughly if and when it appears that this S-bus interface board will be available in time to be used for DEIMOS.

Figure 4.1 also provides the relevant data rates per channel. A data rate of 100 KB/sec per amplifier (or 50 kilopixel/sec per amplifier, since each pixel yields 2 bytes of data) is shown, which is in-between our goal of 200 KB/sec and the specification of 66 KB/sec. To meet the goal, the various rates shown on Figure 4.1 should be increased by a factor of 2. This increase in rate does not otherwise change the diagram, except that a second FDDI board, or alternative interface, will likely be required between the VME Crate and the Instrument Computer.

Additional details and data rates are considered in Section 9.2.

4.2.2 Preamplifiers

The current plan is to use the same-style external preamplifier boards as are used in HIRES and at Lick. These are based on an amplifier design by Janesick, which has been in use for over a decade. While this design has worked well, some improvements are needed to optimize its use with dewars that provide AC coupling between the CCD output amplifier and the preamp (see 4.2.2.1 below). For DEIMOS, since the preamp board is exposed to dome air, we may need to consider using military-grade components on the preamp board in order to meet the gain stability requirements.

In the existing HIRES implementation, each preamplifier board contains two independent channels. Depending upon mechanical packaging constraints imposed by DEIMOS, it may prove necessary to lay out a new version of this board containing more channels. To minimize noise, it is vital that these preamplifiers be mounted as close as possible to the dewar, such that the length of coax cable from the dewar connector to the preamp input is no longer than 3-4 inches. The preamplifier boards must be housed in a well-shielded metal enclosure that is coupled directly to the side of the dewar. Proper grounding and shielding is critical, since the signal levels from the CCD are extremely low-level and susceptible to noise pickup. It is also vital that the +15 and -15 DC volts power supplied to these external preamps be extremely stable and free of significant noise. Thus, the supplies for these preamps must be very well regulated and heavily filtered. In the HIRES and MOS systems, we have employed separate Pi-filter networks for each preamp supply.

4.2.2.1 DC Restoration

Since the DEIMOS dewar will most likely follow the standard Lick (and HIRES) dewar design which employs a protective AC coupling capacitor within the dewar, an active DC restoration mechanism will be provided as part of the preamplifier to insure that this coupling capacitor is properly discharged during each pixel time. In the initial HIRES implementation, this coupling capacitor (whose primary purpose is to protect the CCD output amplifier from accidental damage resulting from unexpected transients that originate outside the dewar) was found to be a significant source of residual signal. Bright features in the imaging area resulted in residual signal that was noticeably present in the overscan region and which complicated the use of the overscan pixel data for compensation of row-to-row baseline drifts. Such features would also result in low-level residual signal contaminating adjacent imaging areas.

A prototype version of this DC restoration modification to the preamplifier has been assembled and tested (see Figure 4.2). To insure that the TTL logic level which activates the DC restore mechanism does not create ground loops which would introduce noise into the preamp, this level is received via an HPCL optical isolator. When tested with Te tronix 2K x 2K CCDs, it effectively eliminates residual signal bleed-through into the overscan region without increasing the readout noise of the system. However, we have had mixed results with this modification when used with other types of CCDs, such as the Loral and Orbit 2K x 2K devices, where this modification has increased the readout noise. It is suspected that for these devices we are discharging the coupling capacitor too rapidly and that a small series resistance in the clamping circuit is probably needed. We anticipate that further design iterations of this DC restoration circuit will be needed to optimize its function with whatever CCDs are ultimately used for DEIMOS.

4.2.2.2 Cabling

All of the video signals from the dewar to the UCSD CCD electronics chassis will be carried on coaxial cables. While these video signals will penetrate the dewar wall via the same vacuum-tight multi-pin MS connector that is used to carry the clock waveforms and bias voltages, each video signal pin will be surrounded by ground pins to insure adequate shielding and isolation from the non-video signals in the connector. The coaxial cable conductor will be soldered directly to the pin carrying the video signal, and the ground braid connected directly to the surrounding ground pins. This technique has proved successful on HIRES and on all dewars used at Lick. We have not used separate BNC connectors for the video signals because we have been unable to find versions of these connectors which are vacuum-tight. Given the large number of video, clock waveform, and bias voltages required to support the DEIMOS mosaic, we anticipate that several such large multi-pin MS connectors will be needed on each dewar.

As noted earlier, the preamplifiers will be located as close as possible to the dewar to minimize the cable length to the input of the preamplifier. Similarly, the UCSD CCD electronics chassis will be located as close as practical to the preamplifier enclosure, although for these cables lengths of several feet are quite acceptable.

The bias voltages and clock driver signals originate from the UCSD analog boards via 37-wire flat ribbon cables terminated in DB37 connectors. Approximately half of the wires in these cables are grounds. Based on recent tests conducted at Lick, some small improvement in readout noise might be achieved if each ribbon cable were encased inside a large tubular ground braid. Inside a well shielded enclosure near the dewar, these ribbon cables will terminate on a dewar interconnect board, which allows re-arrangement of the signal lines into cabling that attaches directly to the vacuum-tight dewar connector. This interconnect board may also contain analog switches which can be used to electrically isolate the CCD from the UCSD chassis without the need to disconnect cables. Such isolation was needed in the Keck I UCSD system to insure that the CCD was protected from momentary power-up and power-down transients from the UCSD analog boards. Such isolation may be unnecessary in the second-generation UCSD system.

For the DEIMOS mosaics, the potential number of bias voltage, clock driver, and video lines which might penetrate the dewar wall could be quite large, as might be the size of the dewar interconnect board. What is unknown is which signals must be supplied independently to each quadrant of each chip, and which signals can be shared. There are potential trade-offs between cross-talk, readout noise, readout modes, and cabling complexity that may require a significant amount of testing to resolve. At present, it is expected that the bias voltages will be independently provided to each amplifier of each chip in the mosaic. Whether the clock signals also need to be supplied using independent drivers and wires, or whether the corresponding clocks can be shared between some or all of the chips of the mosaic, depends on the results of various cross-talk and readout noise tests.

4.2.2.3 Electronic Cross-Talk Tests

As noted, we need to check carefully that the multi-channel preamp boards provide adequate inter-channel isolation, to insure that they are not a source of cross-talk between amplifier channels. The multi-amplifier readout CCD cross-talk tests should be tried with various configurations of signal routings, comparing two channels routed through the same multi-channel preamp boards versus completely separate boards.

In addition, since the current preamplifier design is over a decade old, we should investigate whether it can be improved by the use of more modern components which might yield lower noise and better gain stability under temperature variation.

4.2.2.4 Other Risks

The staff of the UCO/Lick CCD Detector Lab does not yet have experience dealing with mosaics of CCD chips within a common dewar. Aside from the various mechanical challenges to be faced, there may be subtle electronic interactions that effect readout noise and cross-talk and which are critically dependent on how the dewar is internally wired, and how the wires are routed, packaged, and cross-connected at the dewar interconnect board. The amount of testing time required to arrive at an optimal solution could be significant.

4.2.3 CCD Controllers

4.2.3.1 UCSD Controller

The current plan is to use UCSD CCD controllers for DEIMOS. HIRES and LRIS used a first-generation UCSD model. UCSD is currently developing a second-generation system which should be available in mid-1995 and which should provide significantly higher readout rates than the existing system (see Table 4.1). If this new system is available in time and provides the expected gains in performance, we hope to migrate to that system, building on the experience we have with the first-generation system. This is our default plan. Otherwise, the fallback plan is simply to do a brute-force scaled up version of the first-generation UCSD system that was used for HIRES. The UCSD CCD Controller components were listed in Section 4.2.1.

UCSD plans to have its new controller working by mid-1995. We recently (10/28/94) verified with Leach that he is still on schedule. Table 4.1, extracted from the paper presented by Leach at the 1994 IAU Meeting in the Hague, compares some of the important characteristics of the old and new controllers.

4.2.3.2 Other CCD Controller Options

There are other CCD controllers in use or under development at other observatories. These include:

• NOAO CCD Controller--ARCON
• ESO Controller
• SDSS Controller
• Italian Galileo Telescope Controller
• Rutherford-SAAO CCD Controller

Of these, probably only the ARCON Controller could be considered as a reasonable alternate to UCSD. All of the others are still in early stages of development or are not likely to be available as finished printed-circuit boards. Even parts of the ARCON Controller are available only in custom Speedwire board form, and our latest information is that it will not be available in finished PC form for about two years. Nevertheless, we have evaluated the ARCON Controller because the analog signal processing portion is reported to be well designed, low-noise, and compactly packaged.

There are also a few commercial controllers available such as those from Pulse Instruments and Astromed, Ltd. However, their designs do not handle large mosaics with many readout channels.

4.2.3.3 Justification of UCSD Controller

The UCSD Controller was selected for the Keck instruments because it was an available, working system long before any other controller. At Lick we now have years of experience in programming, developing, debugging, and actual on-telescope use of the current UCSD system. There are working systems on the Keck telescope (HIRES and LRIS spectrographs) and on the Shane telescope (MOS dual-beam fiber-fed spectrograph). We are currently building another UCSD system to run our IR detector arrays on Mt. Hamilton. We also have a close working relationship with Bob Leach, which has proven very valuable in debugging and testing both hardware and software. In addition, the existing UCSD system is in use at several other sites in Hawaii (i.e., CFHT and IFA), as well as numerous other sites in the US and Europe. There is an organized users' group and associated e-mail mailing list which allows UCSD users to communicate with each other and with UCSD.

Although the existing UCSD system has some deficiencies in terms of its packaging and power-up/power-down transients, neither of these has proved fatal, and both should be addressed by the new UCSD Controller. For the HIRES Spectrograph at Keck and the MOS Spectrograph at Lick, we have found that the existing UCSD system meets our current performance specifications with respect to both readout rate and readout noise. The existing system also meets the readout noise requirements of DEIMOS, although it falls short of our readout rate goal by more than a factor of three. The second-generation UCSD system should satisfy the readout rate required by DEIMOS and should also result in a more compact and efficient package for a CCD mosaic system.

While the new UCSD Controller will have some important differences, it will in many respects be similar to the current system. In the new system the controlling DSP processor will be faster, but it will be the same type of device, and our programming skills and tools are already in place for these devices. The details of the clocking waveforms will be different, but the general approach to creating waveforms from memory tables will remain the same. Equally important, the existing CCD Controller support code that runs in the VME Crate and the host computer will, in most cases, need little modification to work with the new UCSD Controller. All of these points demonstrate that the adoption of the new UCSD system will be an evolutionary change rather than a revolutionary one. The infrastructure already exists at Lick (and Keck) to work with these systems. Discarding that infrastructure in favor of a new system would be very costly in dollars and time and could be justified only if there was an overwhelming advantage.

That overwhelming advantage does not appear to exist. As indicated in the previous section, the ARCON controller is the only other system comparable to the UCSD system. It is a proven system, working now on CTIO telescopes. However, it is a very different system from the UCSD Controller. An entirely new infrastructure would have to be developed to support the ARCON system. But there is no obvious advantage in cost, complexity, data quality, or scientific productivity that could justify the switch. In fact, in most parameters of interest to DEIMOS (primarily readout speed and ability to handle many readout channels), the systems are comparable.

In the previous paragraph we said that discarding our UCSD Controller infrastructure would be costly. That is an over-simplification since we could not actually discard it. We already have UCSD Controllers running that must be maintained and supported, so we would have to add a new support infrastructure if we were to adopt a different controller. This would be even more expensive both in immediate costs to DEIMOS and in terms of long-term maintenance, support, and development. All of this expense and personnel expertise would have to be duplicated at Lick and at Keck. None of this can be justified.

4.2.3.4 Keck Experience With UCSD

The Keck experience with UCSD has been mixed. In HIRES, the UCSD system has performed well in terms of its reliability and readout noise. On the other hand, LRIS initially experienced significant problems with readout noise on their UCSD system. Some of this difference is due to differences in cabling and dewar wiring between the HIRES and LRIS systems. However, the HIRES UCSD system is located in a somewhat more benign environment, inside a shielded and insulated compartment which is itself inside of the larger, metal HIRES enclosure, while the LRIS UCSD Controller is in a much more exposed and less adequately shielded location at Cassegrain focus. After investing additional effort in grounding and shielding, the readout noise performance of the LRIS UCSD system has been significantly improved and is now close to that of HIRES.

The conclusion is that the UCSD systems are relatively sensitive to noise pickup from the environment and that careful attention must be given to the design of the shielding and grounding of the enclosure in which they are to be contained.

4.2.3.5 Risks In Expanding UCSD To 32 Amplifier System

In the default plan, there would be a separate UCSD CCD Controller chassis for each dewar. Since each of these chassis must provide for readout of 16 amplifiers, each would require 8 dual-channel analog boards. In addition, each chassis would require one timing board for overall control and data transmission, and one utility board to control auxiliary dewar functions such as control of the shutter, dewar temperature, and liquid nitrogen levels. Thus, a total of 10 boards would be needed for each Controller, and these would plug into a 10-slot 3U format VME backplane. This number of UCSD boards per Controller is more than twice the number currently used in the HIRES and LRIS Controllers (4 in each: 1 timing, 1 utility, 2 analog) and not quite twice that used in MOS system at Lick (6 boards: 1 timing, 2 utility, 4 analog).

While a 10-slot VME backplane should not in itself present any technical problems, the longer backplane and larger number of boards (and resultant heavier loading of signals on the bus) places more stringent requirements on the bus driver circuitry employed on the timing, utility, and analog boards. While we have been able to operate our existing UCSD Controller chassis without bus terminators on the backplane, the longer backplane and higher board count for 16 amplifiers may make these necessary, and this in turn will impact the bus driver circuitry. In addition, since the second-generation UCSD system will run 2.5 times faster than the current system (40 nsec per instruction versus 100 nsec), the driver circuits and backplane will need to support higher-speed signals. Meeting these requirements is well within the capabilities of the VME backplane and of currently available bus-driver chips, and we are confident that the second-generation UCSD system should be able to meet them. However, it is prudent to note that these requirements are several times more difficult to meet than those faced by the current UCSD system.

If the second-generation UCSD system does not become available on schedule, then similar concerns regarding bus length and bus loading apply when scaling up the current UCSD system to support 16 amplifiers per Controller. Since the existing UCSD system supports only a single amplifier per analog board, 16 of these boards would be needed per Controller, and an 18-slot 3U format VME backplane would be required, since 2 additional slots are required for the timing and utility boards. This is only 3 slots less than the maximum length backplane (21 slots) and is thus pushing the bus length close to its theoretical limit. While the existing UCSD system should in theory be able to support this number of analog boards per chassis, we have never had enough analog boards to actually test this, nor are we aware of any other sites which have. Should this prove to be a problem, the second-level fallback plan would require having two UCSD CCD Controller backplanes per dewar, with each such backplane having 10 boards/slots. This would also double the number of VME interface boards required in the CCD VME crate in the control room. Finally, it would increase the volume, weight, and heat dissipation of the UCSD chassis that are mounted within the spectrograph. All of these impacts would be expensive, and it is worth considerable effort to avoid them.

4.2.4 VME Crate (Control Room)

Depending upon the availability and usability of UCSD's S-bus interface board for the second-generation UCSD system, the CCD VME Crate might be eliminated from the overall system, providing a significant savings in cost.

If the S-bus interface option does not prove viable, then we will proceed with building the VME crate as illustrated in Figure 4.1. While the precise components are not yet known, they will consist of:

• An embedded CPU card (probably SPARC architecture, e.g., Force-5CE)
• Bulk VME memory boards adequate to buffer an image
• UCSD VME interface board
• High speed industry standard interface board (e.g., FDDI, SCSI)

These are all essentially off-the-shelf boards that plug into an industry standard VME bus. As such, we do not see any particularly risky components in the VME Crate, and it follows the overall model that was successfully used by both HIRES and LRIS.

4.3 Planned Exposure/Readout Modes and Times

Several exposure/readout modes are planned:

1)Two independent beams: Each beam of the spectrograph can be set up to expose and read out separately, or the two sides can be ganged with a single command.

2) Regular exposure mode: The shutter is opened for a specified period of time, it closes, and the CCD is read out. The minimum commandable time is 0.1 s (the shutter will not be uniform for this short a time, but the data may be useful for bright objects), and the maximum time is 20,000 sec.

3) Multiple exposure mode with single readout: This involves N exposures of M seconds each, with a single readout at the end. The spectrograph may give or receive commands between each exposure. For example, DEIMOS may command the telescope to move between exposures and change focus, producing a focus sequence on one image. This mode is also useful without commands to determine shutter timing error. A series of 1 sec exposures in multiple mode is divided by a single long exposure of the same total duration. The resultant map is a map of the shutter timing error at 1 second.

4) Multiple exposure mode with shift of image by N rows: This mode is similar to 3), but the image is now shifted between each exposure. It may be faster in some cases to produce multiple exposures this way than by moving the telescope. It is also useful for tests within DEIMOS itself.

5) Dark exposure: Same as regular mode, but shutter remains closed.

6) Bias exposure: A dark exposure of 0 seconds.

7) Specific amplifiers: Reads out only a specified subset of the amplifiers in a given mosaic.

8) Specific subregions: Reads out only specific subregions of the mosaic. The exact parameters are TBD.

9) On-chip binning: Images can be binned on chip by 1 x 2, 2 x 1, and 2 x 2. Additional binning combinations will be supported, provided that these do not result in discontinuities in the image at the boundary which divides each row into the two halves that are read respectively by the amplifiers at each end. In general, values for column binning will be constrained to be evenly divisible into half the number of pixels in each row (i.e., 1024). Values for row binning will be constrained to be evenly divisible into the number of rows (i.e., 4096). In the case of a binned and windowed readout, the window size will be adjusted upwards to insure that the binning parameters divide evenly into the corresponding dimension of the readout window.

10) Rapid readout: A fast mode that pushes the electronics as fast as they can go, with concomitant increase in noise. This mode would be useful for focussing and alignment tests. Exact parameters are TBD.

11) Eventual drift-scan mode: If optical studies show that distortion is low enough for drift-scanning, we will study the requirements and, if not too costly, we will build the necessary flexibility into the electronics. We do not intend to implement drift-scanning for first light as that would require considerable extra software and testing, and the demand for it has not been proven.

12) The total time to read out, display, and store a raw exposure on disk is estimated to be as follows:

Writing of the image(s) to disk is not overlapped with the CCD readout because the image(s) must first be completely de-interleaved and stitched together before disk writing operations can be initiated. The disk write time goal of 13 seconds assumes a sustained disk write rate of 20 megabytes/second, while the specification assumes a more conservative rate of 13 MB/sec. Either of these implies the use of RAID disk technology. The exact format in which the image(s) will be written to disk is TBD. Initial plans call for writing the image from each CCD as a separate FITS file, rather than writing the 128 megabytes of data from each dewar as a single monolithic file.

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