Current status of the end-of-substructure (EoS) card project for the ATLAS strip tracker upgrade using final ASICs

• Published in: Journal of instrumentation 2023-03, Vol.18 (3), p.C03016
• Main Authors: Boebel, A.L., Ceslik, H., Dam, M., Diez, S., Garvey, C., Göttlicher, P., Gregor, I.M., Keaveney, J.M., Van der Merwe, M.N., Oechsle, J., Schmitt, S., Stanitzki, M., Strom, L.R., Wyngaard, J.R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Circuit boards; Electronic detector readout concepts (solid-state); Electronics; Front-end electronics for detector readout; Large Hadron Collider; Luminosity; Optical fibers; Printed circuits; Quality control; Sensors
• ISSN: 1748-0221; 1748-0221
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-0221/18/03/C03016

In the context of the high-luminosity upgrade of the LHC and ATLAS, the microstrip-tracking detector will be redesigned. The main building blocks are substructures with multiple sensors and their electronics. Each substructure will have a single interface to the off-detector system, the so-called End-of-Substructure (EoS) card. Its physical realisation is a set of printed circuit boards (PCBs). The PCB integrates ASICs and hybrids, which multiplex or demultipex the data and transmit with a rate up to 10 Gb/s or receive with a rate up to 2.5 Gb/s on optical fibres. These active parts are developed at CERN and are known as lpGBT and VTRx+. The EoS card integrates the active parts with the required electronics for the specified operation and within the mechanical constraints of the detector. In this paper critical design aspects such as the low-impedance powering scheme and the PCB setup are described. The EoS card has reached its final state for a series production, including the required setups for quality control. The achieved transmission quality on the 10 Gb/s links is presented.