TiCkS: A Flexible White-Rabbit Based Time-Stamping Board
C. Champion (1), M. Punch (1, 2), R. Oger (1), S. Colonges (1, for, the CTA Consortium), and Y. Moudden (3) ((1) APC, Univ Paris Diderot,, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/Irfu, Obs de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cit\'e, France, (2), Linnaeus University, V\"axj\"o, Sweden

TL;DR
The paper presents TiCkS, a flexible, FPGA-based time-stamping board with nanosecond precision, designed for use in Cherenkov Telescope Array cameras and adaptable for various experimental setups.
Contribution
It introduces a novel, FPGA firmware-based time-stamping solution with a TDC and UDP communication, enhancing flexibility and precision in experimental trigger signal timestamping.
Findings
Achieves ns-precision time-stamping of trigger signals up to 400 kHz.
Provides a flexible, small-form-factor design suitable for CTA cameras.
Offers an open hardware FPGA mezzanine card for diverse input/output configurations.
Abstract
We have developed the TiCkS board (Time and Clock Stamping) based on the White Rabbit (WR) SPEC node (Simple PCIe FMC carrier), to provide ns-precision time-stamps (TSs) of input signals (e.g., triggers from a connected device) and transmission of these TSs to a central collection point. TiCkS was developed within the specifications of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) as one of the candidate TS nodes, with a small form-factor allowing its use in any CTA camera. The essence of this development concerns the firmware in its Spartan-6 FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array), with the addition of: 1) a ns-precision TDC (Time-to-Digital Convertor) for the TSs; and 2) a UDP stack (User Datagram Protocol) to send TSs and auxiliary information over the WR fibre, and to receive configuration & slow control commands over the same fibre. It also provides a PPS (Pulse Per Second) and other clock…
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