Abstract
The VMM is a custom Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) that can be used in a variety of charge interpolating tracking detectors. It is designed to be used with the resistive strip micromegas and sTGC detectors in the New Small Wheel upgrade of the ATLAS Muon spectrometer. The ASIC is designed at Brookhaven National Laboratory and fabricated in the 130 nm Global Foundries 8RF-DM process. It is packaged in a Ball Grid Array with outline dimensions of 21×21 mm2. It integrates 64 channels, each providing charge amplification, discrimination, neighbour logic, amplitude and timing measurements, analog-to-digital conversions, and either direct output for trigger or multiplexed readout. The front-end amplifier can operate with a wide range of input capacitances, has adjustable polarity, gain and peaking time. The VMM1 and VMM2 are the first two versions of the VMM ASIC family fabricated in 2012 and 2014 respectively. The design, tests and qualification of the VMM1, VMM2 and roadmap to VMM3 are described.
Highlights
In order to handle efficiently the increased trigger rate that is expected from the high luminosity LHC performance after the long shutdown of 2019-2020 (Phase-I), the innermost station of the ATLAS muon end-cap system (Small Wheel, SW) will be replaced
The New Small Wheels (NSW)[1] will follow the same segmentation as the present detector system but will be equipped with two new detector technologies: resistive strip micromegas [2] and small-strip Thin Gap Chambers [8]. Both detectors have to operate under a high background radiation region while providing precise muon tracking information as well as Level-1 trigger primitives independently
The VMM2 is a deep redesign of the VMM1 correcting the drawbacks found as well as including a fully digital continuous readout mode
Summary
In order to handle efficiently the increased trigger rate that is expected from the high luminosity LHC performance after the long shutdown of 2019-2020 (Phase-I), the innermost station of the ATLAS muon end-cap system (Small Wheel, SW) will be replaced. The New Small Wheels (NSW)[1] will follow the same segmentation as the present detector system but will be equipped with two new detector technologies: resistive strip micromegas [2] and small-strip Thin Gap Chambers (sTGC) [8] Both detectors have to operate under a high background radiation region (up to 15 kHz/cm primarily from low energy photons and neutrons) while providing precise muon tracking information as well as Level-1 trigger primitives independently. This detector system of ∼2.3 million readout channels (∼2 million for micromegas and ∼0.3 million for sTGC) adds highly challenging requirements for the frontend electronics.
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