The timing community is getting synchronised: the White Rabbit Collaboration launches
The development of the White Rabbit technology, started at CERN more than ten years ago to synchronise the accelerators down to picoseconds.
The White Rabbit Network is based on existing IEEE standards while extending these standards in a backward-compatible way if needed to meet CERN’s requirement. (Image: CERN)
Synchronising devices located kilometres apart presents a significant challenge, especially when accuracy to the scale of billionths of a second is required, as is the case for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At this level of precision, factors such as the time it takes for light to travel through a fibre optic cable and the time needed for electronics to process the signal become critical.
The White Rabbit technology was designed to serve a dual purpose: it was tailored to meet CERN's specific time-distribution requirements while also offering benefits to a wider array of users. Over the past decade, it has gained recognition in various industries as the benchmark for high-precision synchronisation. Its applications extend far beyond high-energy physics, finding utility in other research facilities and commercial sectors alike.
The technology’s hardware, firmware, and software is fully open source, allowing companies and institutes to adapt it to their needs, incorporate it in their products and benefit the timing community with their improvements. The hardware is available through the CERN Open Hardware Licence, developed by the Laboratory as a tool to promote collaboration.
It has been a joint effort from the start and now CERN has decided to go one step further, by launching a membership-based global community, called the White Rabbit Collaboration together with the other founding members.
The objective of the White Rabbit Collaboration is to maintain a high-performance open-source technology meeting the latest needs of users and to facilitate its uptake by industry. It does this by providing dedicated support and training, facilitating R&D projects between entities with common interests and complementary expertise as well as establishing a testing ecosystem fostering trust in products incorporating the open-source technology.
All who share the passion for technological advancement, are warmly invited to attend the White Rabbit Collaboration Launch Ceremony on 21 and 22 March which will take place at CERN and online.
As new emerging technologies have more stringent synchronisation requirements, the goal of the White Rabbit Collaboration is to bring all stakeholders of the technology together, identify common interests and development needs, and define its future.– Javier Serrano, Chair of the White Rabbit Collaboration and
leader of CERN's Electronics Design and Low Level Software Section