Konzeption, Entwicklung und Aufbau einer FADC-basierten Ausleseelektronik für das MAGIC-Teleskop

The subject of this thesis is the development of a readout system for the camera of the MAGIC telescope. MAGIC is an acronym for Major Atmosphere Gamma Imaging
Cherenkov-Telescope.
Imaging Atmosphere Cherenkov-Telescopes (IACTs) are ground-based telescopes for the detection of very high energy particles, in particular gamma rays. Such cosmic particles are indirectly detected by the Cherenkov light which is produced by particles of a shower induced by primary cosmics in the high atmosphere. The light pulses arriving at the telescope are extremely short and can only be registered by digitizing with a high sampling frequency. For
the MAGIC experiment a parallel sampling of all 640 camera pixel output signals with 300 MHz FADCs is foreseen. The design and testing has been carried out particularly with regard to enable a relatively high data flux of up to 80 MByte/s and to facilitate a highly synchronous clock distribution with a precision in the order of a few picoseconds.
Within the scope of the present work, a first 32 channel subsystem containing all components of the final system has been developed and tested successfully. This prototype system can be considered as a nucleus for the 640 channel system, which will be implemented at the MAGIC experiment site throughout the year 2002.