Abstract

The AM06 is the 6th version of a large associative memory chip designed in 65~nm CMOS technology. The AM06 operates as a highly parallel ASIC processor for pattern recognition in the ATLAS experiment at CERN. It is the core of the Fast TracKer electronic system, which is tailored for on-line track finding in the trigger system of the ATLAS experiment. The Fast TracKer system is able to process events up to 100~kHz in real time. The AM06 is a complex chip, and it has been designed combining full-custom memory arrays, standard logic cells and IP blocks. It contains memory banks that store data organized in 18 bit words; a group of 8 words is called a pattern. It accepts as input 16-bit words at a rate of 100 MHz, which are serialized with an 8b/10b encoding, thus giving a serial data rate equal to 2 Gbit/s. The chip silicon area is 168~mm$^2$; it contains 421 millions of transistors and it stores 2^17 patterns. Moreover, the associative memory is suitable also for other interdisciplinary applications (i.e., general purpose image filtering and analysis). In the near future we plan to design a more powerful and flexible chip in 28~nm CMOS technology.

Highlights

  • IntroductionThe Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will reach a luminosity of 2 − 3 · 1034 cm−2 s−1, and experiments will produce a huge amount of data, requiring a tight selection of events to be transferred to the mass storage system [1]

  • After the upgrade, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will reach a luminosity of 2 − 3 · 1034 cm−2 s−1, and experiments will produce a huge amount of data, requiring a tight selection of events to be transferred to the mass storage system [1].The Fast TracKer (FTK) [2] is an electronic system in the ATLAS experiment [3] that rapidly finds and reconstructs tracks in the inner silicon detector layers, for every event that passes the Level-1 trigger

  • The AM06 operates as a highly parallel ASIC processor for pattern recognition in the ATLAS experiment at CERN. It is the core of the Fast TracKer electronic system, which is tailored for on-line track finding in the trigger system of the ATLAS experiment

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Summary

Introduction

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will reach a luminosity of 2 − 3 · 1034 cm−2 s−1, and experiments will produce a huge amount of data, requiring a tight selection of events to be transferred to the mass storage system [1]. The Fast TracKer (FTK) [2] is an electronic system in the ATLAS experiment [3] that rapidly finds and reconstructs tracks in the inner silicon detector layers (pixel and strip), for every event that passes the Level-1 trigger. It uses 12 logical layers of the silicon detector over the full rapidity range covered by the barrel and end-caps; 4 for pixel layers, including the new Insertable B-Layer (IBL), and 8 for the strip SemiConductor Tracker (SCT), including both the axial and stereo sides on each of its’ 4 physical layers

FTK architecture
The associative memory chip
AM06 characterization and test
Conclusion

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