An ASIC readout system for PAD detectors

A full custom chipset has been designed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for the readout of cathode pads in a RICH detector. The circuits form readout modules that are connected in an array that may be extended to instrument detectors of any size. Each read-out module contains three ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), two eight-channel bipolar preamplifier and discriminator chips, and one 16-channel digital data processing chip. Each module thus processes 16 channels of detector signal. A brief description of each chip is included together with a summary of the readout architecture and test results