Minutes of the 1^st Timing Working Group Meeting (TimWG)
Held on Thusrday 15^th April 1999

  Present:

Excused:

Rudiger SCHMIDT, Philippe BAUDRENGHIEN

Agenda

• Selection of the Working Group secretary
• Introductory remarks from Paul PROUDLOCK
• Introduction of each member and a brief statement of their timing interests
• Discussion of the mandate
• Proposal of the time interval and contents of future meetings.

Selection of the Working Group secretary

Gary BEETHAM proposed Etienne CARLIER for secretary. The members of the working group accepted this proposition.

Introductory remarks from Paul PROUDLOCK

Paul PROUDLOCK presented the technical organisation of the LHC project and explained the different links between the Timing Working Group and other technical committees. He emphasied the importance of the Timing Working Group and over-viewed the principal milestones of the LHC project. (See slides attached)

Introduction of each member and a statement of their timing interests

Julian LEWIS is representing PS/CO. In addition he is the linkman for the PS division. He is also involved in the timing aspect of the PS/SL convergence project. Timing interests:

• Coherence between injector chain and LHC accelerator timing system,
• Common approach for both systems.

Adriaan RIJLLART is representing LHC/IAS group (control of STRING1 & STRING2) and is a member of the IWG working group. Timing interests:

• Post mortem analysis,
• Synchronisation between equipment,
• Sequencing data acquisition,
• Data acquisition time stamp,
• Synchronisation procedure,
• No separate timing system between accelerator and technical equipment.

Etienne CARLIER is representing the SL/BT group. Timing interests:

• Fast timing ("ns"), slow timing ("ms"), soft timing,
• Revolution frequency,
• Reliability and redundancy of timing distribution,
• Synchronisation between equipment.

Jean-Jacques SAVIOZ is representing the SL/BI group. He is responsible for the BST system in LEP. Timing interests:

• Precise timing system necessary in the arc and in the tunnel (under the magnets),
• Synchronise acquisition with bunch clock number (BPOS & BLOSS),
• Reduction of timing cabling around the machine (only one wire around the tunnel),
• WorldFIP will be used for real time data transfer and post mortem analysis.

Michel JONKER is representing SL/CO group as well as SL/OP. He is also the linkman for the SL division. He has a close contact with LHC experiments on timing aspect. Timing interests:

• Responsible for the timing generation in the SPS and LEP,
• Large experience with operational aspect of timing system in accelerator operation and control,
• Experience with synchronised actions (i.e. power converter settings/beam acquisition).

John PETT is representing the SL/PO group. Timing interests:

• Synchronous control of 1700 power converters around the ring,
• Interested in the "ms" timing,
• Synchronisation of all the power converters around the machine,
• Post-mortem analysis,
• Typically a few events are needed,
• Concept of the actual timing system is convenient,
• Communication between power converter based on WorldFIP,
• Machine state available on the timing system.

Discussion on the mandate

Robin presented the mandate of the working group and emphasied the different aspects involved in this mandate (i.e. fast timing, cycle timing and synchronisation). It is requested that the members of the working group discuss the content of this mandate in their different environments in order to identify all the possible requirements and review the mandate in the next meeting.
 
Proposals for the time intervals and contents of future meetings.

Meetings will be held approximately every two weeks, Friday at 10:30 AM in 864 1C01. The provisional agenda for the next meeting will be fixed at the end of the meeting.

Excuse for the lateness of these first minutes but the meeting clashed with the LEP start-up.