and Studies of theNetworkPerformance ofDAQ Protocols

FPGAdevices havebecomecommonindata acquisition (DAQ)systems forHighEnergy Particle Physics Experiments. Thenextgeneration ofDAQ systems will use FPGAswithcommercial networking components. Theuseof FPGAstogenerate gigabit-Ethernet datastreams hasbeen investigated using aVirtex 4development system togenerate raw Ethernet packets overbothfibre andcopperlinks. Details ofthe firmware developed todrive thelinks arepresented. Throughput andpacket loss overstandard Ethernet networks toPCshave beenmeasured using different request-response protocols. Sequential request andgrouprequest DAQ datacollection protocols havebeenimplemented andinitial scaling tests are reported. IndexTerms-,e-VLBI,CBR,TCP/IP,UDP/IPGigabit Ethernet.