A MOdular System for Acquisition, Interface and Control (MOSAIC) of detectors and their related electronics for high energy physics experiment

G De Robertis,M Rizzi,V Manzari,G Fanizzi,F Loddo,S Dalla Torre,L Ropelewski,B Gobbo,F Tessarotto,S Levorato

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201817407002

Abstract

In this work the MOSAIC (“MOdular System for Acquisition, Interface and Control”) board, designed for the readout and testing of the pixel modules for the silicon tracker upgrade of the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) experiment at teh CERN LHC, is described. It is based on an Artix7 Field Programmable Gate Array device by Xilinx and is compliant with the six unit “Versa Modular Eurocard” standard (6U-VME) for easy housing in a standard VMEbus crate from which it takes only power supplies and cooling.

Highlights

This paper describes the main features and the preliminary tests of the electronics board, called MOSAIC, developed for the characterization of the detector building blocks of the new Inner Tracking System (ITS), which is a key element of the ALICE upgrade strategy for the Run 3 of LHC
ALICE [1] is the CERN LHC experiment designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme conditions of energy density (∼ 15 GeV/fm3) and temperature over a large volume (∼ 1000fm3), and in particular the properties of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), using nucleus-nucleus, proton-nucleus and proton-proton collisions
The ALICE long-term physics plans include a substantial upgrade of the central barrel detectors, which will be installed during the LHC Long Shutdown scheduled for the years 2019-20, in order to fully exploit the scientific potential of the LHC for fundamental studies of QCD [2]

Summary

Introduction

This paper describes the main features and the preliminary tests of the electronics board, called MOSAIC, developed for the characterization of the detector building blocks of the new Inner Tracking System (ITS), which is a key element of the ALICE upgrade strategy for the Run 3 of LHC. The ALICE long-term physics plans include a substantial upgrade of the central barrel detectors, which will be installed during the LHC Long Shutdown scheduled for the years 2019-20, in order to fully exploit the scientific potential of the LHC for fundamental studies of QCD [2]. The planned upgrades, which will enhance the ALICE vertexing and tracking capabilities at low pT and allow data taking at substantially higher rates, include in particular a completely new ITS made of 7 cylindrical layers entirely based on an innovative active monolithic pixel sensor called ALice PIxel DEtector (ALPIDE) [3]. The ALPIDE chip is the full custom pixel sensor that will equip all modules of the new ITS [4]

Hardware Description

Firmware

Prototype test results

Findings

Conclusions