Hi guys,

I am studying Electrical Engineering in the 5th semester so I don't know 
a lot about MC.

In my practical part right now I work on a project to build a photon 
Detector the APD (Avalanche Photo Diode) is already finshed. We now want 
to build a controll box which should be able to controll the APD 
(Voltage Supply) and the Thermo Electric Cooler.

The APD needs a HV enable signal and then we have to slowly rise the HV 
at the detector and at the same time meassure the actual HV. When the 
deviation is getting to big the HV set should be set to a lower value. 
If the deviation is to big we won't get good measurements.
For the TEC it is almost the same we want to set a Temp (over voltage) 
and measure the actual voltage at the detector and the whole detector 
unit should shut down if the detector gets too hot, as a safety 
precaution.

The control box should controll 4 APD's at the same time, we want to use 
a LCD to display the status of every APD and it should be possible to 
Start/Stop single detectors.

I thought about using one MC for the interface to the human (LCD, 
Start/Stop Buttons), 2 more MC's should then control the single APD's 
maybe 2 APD's per MC. Those would have to set the output voltages and 
compare it to the actual voltage and if there is an error should down 
the APD and send the Error code to the interface MCU which can than 
display the Error on the LCD.

But I have been looking on the internet for appropriate MCU's but I 
haven't the right ones because all of them have to less DAC's I know I 
can use external DAC's but I would be a lot easier if they are already 
build in the chip.

Since I am relativ new to Microcontrollers I don't really know how to 
start and which MC to choose.

Is it possible to buy finished boards for the use of a MC, I mean only 
with the connectors to the ports and so on. All the development board a 
huge and contain a lot of things we don't need and most of them don't 
have a good interface to the ports I don't want use cable connections.

I don't want you to do my job but I am happy of every tip or suggestion 
I can get!

Thanks in advance.
Ben