Field Programmable Gate Array for drift velocity measurement

The usage of a field programmable gate array (FPGA), which was configured to perform a drift velocity measurement of electrons in a gas monitoring drift chamber, will be demonstrated. The fully customizable FPGA augmented with a discriminator mezzanine board allows an efficient registration of the start and stop trigger signals required for the drift velocity measurement. Fewer components are needed compared to the usual setup since the logic is completely implemented in the FPGA. Additional filtering or measurement of specific quantities, like the drift time, can be performed directly on the board, which reduces the data volume to be transfered for further data processing. A further advantage is the possibility to perform multiple measurements simultaneously inside one FPGA.