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ASICs for Next Generation Particle and Astroparticle Detectors

Abstract: Many new instrumentation initiatives in high energy physics and astroparticle physics require dense arrays of high speed and low noise precision sampling devices. Space, power, cost and performance reasons drive the development of such custom devices -- often denoted Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). At the University of Hawaii, development of such devices have been targeted toward radio detection of ultra high energy neutrinos, Super B-factory and ILC pixel vertex detectors, focusing DIRC readout and a next generation hard x-ray Compton polarimeter. Details on the architecture and evolution of two specific families, the Large Analog Bandwidth Recorder And Digitizer with Ordered Readout (LABRADOR) and Continuous Acquisition Pixel (CAP) will be presented. Recent results will be shown for prototypes in a 0.15um Silicon On Insulator (SOI) process, wafer-bonded to a high-resistivity, fully depleted substrate. Such a device is an almost ideal marriage of high performance readout with a solid-state sensor and may find many applications.
Speaker: Gary S. Varner - University of Hawaii
Speaker Bio: Gary Varner is a Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii and directs his research interests in instrumentation development for particle and astroparticle physics through the Instrumentation Development Laboratory, which he founded and leads. Recently his team successfully developed the custom RF trigger and digitization electronics flown on the ANITA payload. Working toward the future, he is leading an effort to further improve low-power RF recording technology for a large volume terrestrial radio UHE neutrino detector at the South Pole. Remarkably similar sampling and readout technology is being concurrently explored for Super B-factory and ILC detector pixel vertex detectors, future particle identification techniques, as well as a semiconductor multiple Compton x-ray telescope.
Poster Link: Poster
Presentation: Presentation on 7/11/2007 (PDF)