In nuclear physics, acquisition systems performances are limited by the technology currently used. The use of analog electronics to design the different boards which ensure the functions necessary to any nuclear physics experiment reduces the flexibility drastically. For example, it is currently impossible to use a board dedicated to time measurement for amplitude measurement. Triggers for event sorting are devoted to their experiments. Using parallel buses (VME, VXI, CAMAC) reduces the system bandwidth. The common dead time technique used for event building lowers the system performances.
The aim of FASTER is to build a new acquisition system for charge, amplitude and time measurements based on digital technologies employing modern acquisition techniques (digitalization, data time stamping, serial bus for trigger and data) and using the most recent commercial components. FASTER is intended to be an adaptable and modular system which can fulfill small size experiments (1 or 2 detectors) requirements as well as much larger experiments (few hundreds of detectors) requirements.
