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Scholarly Works (2 results)

Article

ASIC Wafer Test System for the ATLAS Semiconductor Tracker Front-End Chip

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2002)

An ASIC wafer test system has been developed to provide comprehensive production screening of the ATLAS Semiconductor Tracker front-end chip (ABCD3T). The ABCD3T[1] features a 128-channel analog front-end, a digital pipeline, and communication circuitry, clocked at 40 MHz, which is the bunch crossing frequency at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). The tester measures values and tolerance ranges of all critical IC parameters, including DC parameters, electronic noise, time resolution, clock levels and clock timing. The tester is controlled by an FPGA (ORCA3T) programmed to issue the input commands to the IC and to interpret the output data. This allows the high-speed wafer-level IC testing necessary to meet the production schedule. To characterize signal amplitudes and phase margins, the tester utilizes pin-driver, delay, and DAC chips, which control the amplitudes and delays of signals sent to the IC under test. Output signals from the IC under test go through window comparator chips to measure their levels. A probe card has been designed specifically to reduce pick-up noise that can affect the measurements. The system can operate at frequencies up to 100 MHz to study the speed limits of the digital circuitry before and after radiation damage. Testing requirements and design solutions are presented.

Cover page: ASIC Wafer Test System for the ATLAS Semiconductor Tracker Front-End
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Peer Reviewed

The ABC130 barrel module prototyping programme for the ATLAS strip tracker

UC Santa Cruz Previously Published Works (2020)

For the Phase-II Upgrade of the ATLAS Detector [1], its Inner Detector, consisting of silicon pixel, silicon strip and transition radiation sub-detectors, will be replaced with an all new 100% silicon tracker, composed of a pixel tracker at inner radii and a strip tracker at outer radii. The future ATLAS strip tracker will include 11,000 silicon sensor modules in the central region (barrel) and 7,000 modules in the forward region (end-caps), which are foreseen to be constructed over a period of 3.5 years. The construction of each module consists of a series of assembly and quality control steps, which were engineered to be identical for all production sites. In order to develop the tooling and procedures for assembly and testing of these modules, two series of major prototyping programs were conducted: An early program using readout chips designed using a 250 nm fabrication process (ABCN-250) [2,2] and a subsequent program using a follow-up chip set made using 130 nm processing (ABC130 and HCC130 chips). This second generation of readout chips was used for an extensive prototyping program that produced around 100 barrel-type modules and contributed significantly to the development of the final module layout. This paper gives an overview of the components used in ABC130 barrel modules, their assembly procedure and findings resulting from their tests.