A Prototype PCI-based Data Acquisition System for Cosmic Ray Detection Below 10¹8 eV

A prototype flash analog-to-digital readout system for cosmic ray detection at energies below 10^18 eV has been designed and tested at Columbia University Nevis Laboratories. The electronics consist of an FADC module that digitizes 16 photomultipliers at 40 MHz with 14-bit dynamic range. The module is read out to a PC (running Linux) through a PCI interface. Taking advantage of the large bandwidth provided by the PCI bus, we have implemented a software-based data acquisition system. This note describes the software and electronics, as well as preliminary tests carried out using a prototype FADC module.