Introduction

Nuclear physics research at Jefferson lab uses a common software and hardware framework for acquiring nuclear physics data for the entire laboratory. The framework is known as

CODA, short for CEBAF Online Data Acquisition, is a kit of parts that allows the researcher to implement a data acquisition system. The scale of the system can range from a few detector channels in a test stand to tens of thousands of channels in a large detector installation in one of the halls. CODA achieves this scaling through modularity and provides a set of hardware components along with complementary software components.

Data from the detector is digitized by front end hardware, either commercial or disigned and built at JLab. The most common format for electronics is some variant of VME.