Silicon strip and pixel detectors for particle physics experiments

An 8.72 µW Low-Noise and Wide Bandwidth FEE Design for High-Throughput Pixel-Strip (PS) Sensors

“…Consequently, two different readout application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) were developed, namely the Short Strip ASIC (SSA) for the strip sensor and the Macro Pixel ASIC (MPA) for the pixelated sensor [ 2 , 5 , 6 ]. The operating principle of a pixel-strip sensor is illustrated in Figure 1 b [ 7 ]. As ionization is produced on each strip, and the readout circuit should process the ionized particles; therefore, in order to handle higher particles flux, SSA is needed to be implemented within a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process and integrated into the sensor’s chip [ 2 , 5 ]; this will avoid loss of transmission between the high-speed interconnects and the readout ASIC chip [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”

“…Recent research on pixel-strip sensors reveals that those devices can transform gamma rays to charges operating at normal temperature, which exhibits a better potentiality for the detection of X-rays and γ-rays for possible nuclear instrumentation applications [ 6 ]. A typical thickness for Si-sensor is about 300 µm; the limiting irradiation energy, which would penetrate protons through the sensor, is about 6.2 MeV [ 5 , 7 ]. With moderate cooling by means of small Peltier cells, silicon drift detectors and Si-PIN sensors show particularly excellent spectroscopic performances and good detection efficiency below 15 keV [ 5 , 11 , 12 ].…”

“…The input current pulse is integrated into the feedback capacitor and the corresponding output is a step voltage pulse [ 6 , 7 , 10 , 13 , 14 ]. This voltage is filtered and digitized by an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) as shown in Figure 2 .…”

“…In recent years, radiation effects have become an important issue in semiconductor readout systems. Radiation hardened devices are constrained by the technology [ 7 , 9 , 26 ]. Scaling down technology leads to lowering the gate-oxide thickness, involving variations in threshold voltage (Vth) and inducing radiation damage.…”

“…Therefore, this induces a lower trapped charge in the oxides and hence lower will be the radiation-induced threshold voltage shift and leakage current. Reducing variation of Vth helps the MOSFET device become more radiation-tolerant (more robust to radiation) [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 26 ]. A. Baschirotto et al [ 20 ], designed a front-end using a single-ended amplifier as CSA.…”