Front-end electronics for PHENIX time expansion chamber

Author

Chang, Wen Cheng ; Franz, Astrid ; Fried, J. ; Gannon, Jennifer ; Harder, Jesse ; Kandasamy, Arun ; Kotchetkov, Dmitri ; Lebedev, Anton ; Mahon, J. ; Nandi, B. ; O´Brien, E. ; O´Connor, P. ; Pisani, R. ; Rankowitz, S. ; Rosati, Mario ; Seto, R. ; Wang, H.

Volume

49

Issue

3

fYear

2002

fDate

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1141

Lastpage

1146

Abstract

Front-end electronics (FEE) has been developed for the PHENIX time expansion chamber (TEC), a multiwire tracking detector with over 20k readout channels. The FEE for the TEC consists of an analog preamplifier-shaping amplifier circuit board, a digital front-end module circuit board plus ancillary support boards for timing, control and communication. Signals from each chamber wire are sampled (∼40 MHz), digitized, buffered, and then formatted as 64 channel serial data packets to be transmitted via a 1-GHz optical link. Three custom ICs have been designed for this system: 1) octal preamplifier and shaping amplifier with tail cancellation and dual-gain for large dynamic range with full serial control of gain, shaping time and tail; 2) nonlinear 5-b flash ADC with 9-b dynamic range; 3) digital memory unit for programmable delay and memory depth. The FEE has been installed, commissioned, and operated in the PHENIX experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Keywords

analogue-digital conversion; data acquisition; flash memories; multiwire proportional chambers; nuclear electronics; optical links; preamplifiers; programmable circuits; pulse shaping circuits; readout electronics; PHENIX time expansion chamber; analog preamplifier-shaping amplifier circuit board; ancillary support boards; digital front-end module circuit board; digital memory unit; flash ADC; front-end electronics; memory depth; multiwire tracking detector; optical link; programmable delay; readout channels; Communication system control; Detectors; Dynamic range; Optical amplifiers; Optical buffering; Optical fiber communication; Printed circuits; Tail; Timing; Wire;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2002.1039627

Filename

1039627