RedPitaya OS2.07-51 (Multichannelanalyser) working

[Conor Whyte]

For those using the Red Pitaya 125-14 or 125-10, the original Multichannel Analyzer app (created in 2017 by William Thompson and Pavel Demin) has now been updated to work with the newer Red Pitaya OS 2.07-51.

I have rewritten the application in two versions:

A web-based app
A standalone .exe application

The Web app uses the FPGA and ARMv7 directly and allows the fastest acquisition of pulses from the ADC.

The standalone version uses TCP/IP streaming from the board via ports 18900/18901 to capture raw ADC data at rates up to 31.74Msp/s or ~ 62.5 MB/s over the board’s humble 1.0Gbit Ethernet connection.

Due to the overhead of the FPGA processing and TCP/IP transmission, this version is somewhat slower at acquiring pulses. The data is streamed using a 16-bit container (signed int16), even though the ADC hardware itself provides only 14 bits of resolution.

That said, it performs well even with high-intensity (“spicy”) sources, and pulse pileup has not been an issue in testing.

This program relies on the preloaded data stream control application included with Red Pitaya OS 2.07+ (versions 48–51). I strongly recommend upgrading to version 51.