{
  "abstract": "TD-Link is an optical communication architecture that combines high-throughput data readout and sub-nanosecond timing synchronization over a single fiber for large-scale detector systems. It adopts a multidrop daisy-chain ring topology connecting a Data Concentrator to up to sixteen FERS front-end boards per link, with up to eight links per concentrator. Operating at 3.125 Gb/s, TD-Link carries data, synchronization, and control traffic in the same serial stream through a token-based streaming protocol that minimizes per-hop latency and supports on-the-fly payload fragmentation. Deterministic latency is enforced at two levels. On the concentrator, transmitter lanes are aligned by using the half-full flag of the multi-gigabit transceiver (MGT) elastic buffer as a one-bit phase detector: a firmware state machine steps the transmit phase interpolator (PI) until the buffer pointer difference crosses half-depth, locking every lane to the same phase condition. On each front-end board, where the synchronization pulse must also cross from the recovered-clock to the transmit domain, the residual three-to-five-cycle ambiguity of the synchronizer is removed by a calibration-free multiphase oversampling time-to-digital converter (TDC) with 0.8 ns bins, which time-stamps the incoming edge on the transmit time base so that a scheduler regenerates it at a fixed, programmable latency. A Digital Dual Mixer Time Difference (DDMTD) circuit measures the inter-concentrator phase. Tests with CERN PicoTDC-equipped FERS boards show a board-to-board synchronization $σ$ of 24 ps on the same ring, 27 ps across transceiver quads, and 28 ps across two cascaded concentrators, against an intrinsic front-end floor of 7 ps. Over more than one thousand cold boots without re-calibration, the boot-to-boot spread of the board-to-board skew stayed below 20 ps, consistent with the 18.6 ps phase-interpolator step.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2607.00904",
  "author_total": 11,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Andrea Abba"
    },
    {
      "name": "Gianluca Becuzzi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Matteo Bianchini"
    },
    {
      "name": "Francesco Caponio"
    },
    {
      "name": "Stefano Carsi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Alberto Cusimano"
    },
    {
      "name": "Camilla Maggio"
    },
    {
      "name": "Annalisa Mati"
    },
    {
      "name": "Daniele Ninci"
    },
    {
      "name": "Andrea Picchi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Carlo Tintori"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f11tnmmpmrjp7.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2607.00904",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "f11tnmmpmrjp7",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00904",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.ins-det"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2208|Advancements in PLL and VCO Technologies"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7167088318",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.00904",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-12",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f11tnmmpmrjp7.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:29:06Z",
      "native_id": "2607.00904",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00904"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.ins-det",
      "subfield": "applied-instrumentation"
    }
  ],
  "title": "TD-Link: A Daisy-Chain Optical Architecture for Integrated Data Readout and Deterministic Timing Distribution in Large-Scale Detector Systems",
  "title_text": "TD-Link: A Daisy-Chain Optical Architecture for Integrated Data Readout and Deterministic Timing Distribution in Large-Scale Detector Systems",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:29:06Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f11tnmmpmrjp7",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}