The compact spectrometer for heavy ion experiment (CSHINE) is under construction for the study of isospin chronology via the Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT) particle correlation function and the nuclear equation of state of asymmetrical nuclear matter. The CSHINE consists of silicon strip detector (SSD) telescopes and large-area parallel-plate avalanche counters, which measure the light charged particles and fission fragments, respectively. In phase I, two SSD telescopes were used to observe 30 MeV/u $$^{40}$$ Ar + $$^{197}$$ Au reactions. The results presented here demonstrate that hydrogen and helium were observed with high isotopic resolution, and the HBT correlation functions of light charged particles could be constructed from the obtained data.