Instrumentation Design for High Energy Physics Detectors
2010/2011
Penn’s High Energy Physics (HEP) group is directly involved with the ATLAS particle detector at
CERN’s Large Hadronic Collider (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/ATLAS-en.html) Our group is
involved both with data collection and with the design of future upgrades of the detector.
Project Contacts: Mitch Newcomer (mitch@hep.upenn.edu ) and Rick Vanberg (rick@hep.upenn.edu)
The ATLAS detector
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Size: 46 m long, 25 m high and 25 m wide. The ATLAS detector is the largest volume
particle detector ever constructed.
Weight: 7000 tonnes
Design: barrel plus end caps
Location: Meyrin, Switzerland.
We currently have three projects that qualify as interesting senior projects. Successful
completion of any will result in candidate designs for inclusion in the upgraded detector:
1) Inner Tracker, Silicon Strip readout monitor block. Completion of the design of a
voltage and temperature alarm and monitor block requires a count-up switched capacitor
based A/D convertor. This design is targeted for IBM’s CMOS8RF 130nm process.
While the design is relatively straight forward special care will be needed to insure its
resistance to the high radiation levels of the on detector electronics. We are expecting to
be ready for a spring prototype submission.
2) Preamplifier for the Liquid Argon Detector - The readout electronics for the Liquid
Argon calorimeter requires termination of a 25 ohm cable with a very low noise, wide
dynamic range preamplifier. A “Super beta” bipolar transistor circuit has been
implemented and we will want to port this design from IBM’s 8WL Silicon Germanium
BiCMOS process to the less expensive German process, IHP’s SG25H3P. Problems
will include keeping the design specs of 0.25nV/rtHz noise and 5mA input dynamic
range. (The preamplifier gain is specified as a trans resistance of 800 ohms).
Prototype fabrication is scheduled for Spring 2011.
3) Shaper for the Liquid Argon Detector - The signals from the Liquid Argon detector
require a fixed time shaping with two integrations and one differentiation, refered to as
CR-(RC)2.
A preliminary version was fabricated in 2008 along with the preamp
mentioned above in IBM’s 8WL process. Several improvements may be possible
including lowering the power by reverting to a single ended design and impoving the
interface to the preamp to reduce the restrictions on the preamp output. An initial
prototype of the shaper would be fabricated in the Spring of 2011.
Interested persons are invited to contact Mitch Newcomer mitch@hep.upenn.edu) for additional
details.