The Advanced GAmma Tracking Array (AGATA) is a European project to develop and operate the next generation γ-ray spectrometer. AGATA is based on the technique of γ-ray energy tracking in electrically segmented high-purity germanium crystals. This technique requires the accurate determination of the energy, time and position of every interaction as a γ ray deposits its energy within the detector volume. Reconstruction of the full interaction path results in a detector with very high efficiency and excellent spectral response. The realisation of γ-ray tracking and AGATA is a result of many technical advances. These include the development of encapsulated highly segmented germanium detectors assembled in a triple cluster detector cryostat, an electronics system with fast digital sampling and a data acquisition system to process the data at a high rate. The full characterisation of the crystals was measured and compared with detector-response simulations. This enabled pulse-shape analysis algorithms, to extract energy, time and position, to be employed. In addition, tracking algorithms for event reconstruction were developed. The first phase of AGATA is now complete and operational in its first physics campaign. In the future AGATA will be moved between laboratories in Europe and operated in a series of campaigns to take advantage of the different beams and facilities available to maximise its science output. The paper reviews all the achievements made in the AGATA project including all the necessary infrastructure to operate and support the spectrometer

This paper describes a new portable test bench for the TileCal sub-detector of the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The system is used for the certification and quality checks of the front-end electronics drawers. It is designed to be an easily upgradable version of the current 10year-old system, able to evaluate the new technologies planned for the upgrade as well as provide new functionality to the present system. It will be used during the long shutdown of the LHC in 2013-14 and during future maintenance periods.

TileCal is the central hadronic calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The main upgrade of the LHC to increase the instantaneous luminosity is scheduled for 2022. The High Luminosity LHC, also called upgrade Phase-II, will imply a complete redesign of the read-out electronics in TileCal. In the new read-out architecture, the front-end electronics aims to transmit full digitized information to the back-end system in the counting rooms. Thus, the back-end system will also provide digital calibrated information with enhanced precision and granularity to the first level trigger to improve the trigger efficiencies. The demonstrator project is envisaged to qualify this new proposed architecture. A reduced part of the detector, 1/256 of the total, will be equipped with the new electronics during 2014 to evaluate the proposed architecture in real conditions. The upgraded Read-Out Driver (sROD) will be the core element of the back-end electronics in Phase-II. The sROD module is designed on a double mid-size AMC format and will operate under an AdvancedTCA framework. The module includes two Xilinx Series 7 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) for data receiving and processing, as well as the implementation of embedded systems. Related to optical connectors, the sROD uses 4 QSFPs to receive and transmit data from the front-end electronics and 1 Avago MiniPOD to send preprocessed data to the first level trigger system. An SFP module maintains the compatibility with the existing hardware. A complete description of the sROD module for the demonstrator including the main functionalities, circuit design and the control software and firmware will be presented.

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