Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
The ADC, TDC and other digital electronics are typically large circuit boards with connectors at the front edge that provide input and output for digital signals, and a connector at the back that plugs into a backplane. A group of boards are plugged into a chassis, or "crate", that provides physical support, power and cooling for the boards and backplane. This arrangement allows electronics capable of digitizing many hundreds of channels to fit into a single chassis.