Parallel-processing diagnostic program for a transputer-based readout system

A parallel-processing program for system-diagnostic purposes was developed for a transputer-based readout system of a silicon vertex detector (SVD). The data-acquisition (DAQ) system for SVD was constructed as a part of research and development work for the BELLE [name of a detector for an asymmetric collider experiment at High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)] experiment consisting of data scanners (DS), slave memory modules (SMM) and direct memory access master modules (DMM). The DS, SMM and DMM have a transputer as a core processor. Each transputer was linked by a point-to-point connection with transputer serial interfaces (Inmos-link). The DAQ system was equipped with a transputer network system with the Inmos-links. The diagnostic program has the capability to detect malfunctioning readout components. To minimize the processing time during an experiment, the program runs in parallel on each transputer. For this purpose, the program was written using the programming language, occam. With the benefits of its distributed system architecture and without the need for any operating system, the program is compact with high modularity. In this paper, we report the system architecture of this diagnostic program.