APEIRON: A framework for the development of smart TDAQ systems

APEIRON is a framework encompassing the general architecture of a distributed heterogeneous processing platform and the corresponding software stack, from the low level device drivers up to the high level programming model. Developers can define scalable applications that can be deployed on a multi-FPGA system coding at high level: the APEIRON communication IPs allow low-latency communication between processing tasks deployed on FPGAs, even if hosted on different computing nodes. Thanks to the use of High Level Synthesis tools, tasks are described in high level language (C/C++) while communication is expressed through a lightweight API. The aim of the APEIRON project was to develop a flexible framework that could be adopted in the design and implementation of both “traditional” low level trigger systems and of data reduction stages in trigger-less or streaming readout experimental setups.