  An eleven channel digital asynchronous transceiver (DAT) employing parallel
optical link technology has been developed for trigger signal distribution
across the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS).
Combinatorial logic functions are implemented in Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGAs,
providing a versatile solution adaptable for use in future atmospheric Cerenkov
detectors and other high-energy astroparticle experiments. The device is
dead-time free and introduces a minimal skew of 1.6 ns between channels. The
jitter on each DAT channel is less than 0.8 ns 95% of the time, allowing
communication between telescopes and a central trigger system separated by
hundreds of meters, without limiting array performance.
