Design of a new front-end electronics test-bench for the upgraded ATLAS detector's Tile Calorimeter

Abstract

The year 2022 has been scheduled to see an upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in order to increase its instantaneous luminosity. The High Luminosity LHC, also referred to as the upgrade Phase-II, means an inevitable complete re-design of the read-out electronics in the Tile Calorimeter (TileCal) of the A Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS) detector. Here, the new read-out architecture is expected to have the front-end electronics transmit fully digitized information of the detector to the back-end electronics system. Fully digitized signals will allow more sophisticated reconstruction algorithms which will contribute to the required improved triggers at high pile-up. In Phase II, the current Mobile Drawer Integrity ChecKing (MobiDICK) test-bench will be replaced by the next generation test-bench for the TileCal superdrawers, the new Prometeo (A Portable ReadOut ModulE for Tilecal ElectrOnics). Prometeo is a portable, high-throughput electronic system for full certification of the front-end electronics of the ATLAS TileCal. It is designed to interface to the fast links and perform a series of tests on the data to assess the certification of the electronics. The Prometeo's prototype is being assembled by the University of the Witwatersrand and installed at CERN for further developing, tuning and tests. This article describes the overall design of the new Prometeo, and how it fits into the TileCal electronics upgrade.