The intention of the simulation is to provide a functional description of the Level-1 Calorimeter trigger system at the level of data that can be recorded by the standard DAQ or in test memories throughout the system. When data is recorded at various points along the real-time path, the simulation can be used to verify the correct operation of the algorithms used. This procedure can also be used when known test data is being injected at one point of the the system.
The need for such a system comes from the complexity of the
trigger electronics and the various test-setups that will be used in
assessing the hardware.
The necessary mapping from input to output could be
done by simpler means for the final system, but during the slice-test and
beyond, there are likely to be a large variety of different configurations.
This software provides a way to model the modules and connections (as well
as their settings) directly and can be integrated with the configuration
database to automatically pick up the current situation.
However, it does not go into the detail
needed for a full hardware simulation, which would be too slow to run on
a large integrated system.