Results from CHIPIX-FE0, a Small-Scale Prototype of a New Generation Pixel Readout ASIC in 65 nm CMOS for HL-LHC

A prototype of a new-generation readout ASIC targeting High-Luminosity (HL) LHC pixel detector upgrades has been designed and fabricated as part of the Italian INFN CHIPIX65 project using a commercial 65 nm CMOS technology. This demonstrator, hereinafter referred to as CHIPIX-FE0, is composed of a matrix of 64 7 64 pixels with 50 \ub5m 7 50 \ub5m pixel size embedding two different architectures of analog front-ends working in parallel. The final layout of the chip was submitted and accepted for fabrication on July 2016. Chips were received back from the foundry on October 2016 and successfully characterized before irradiation. Several irradiation campaigns with X-rays have been accomplished during 2017 at Padova INFN and CERN EP/ESE facilities under different uniformity and temperature conditions up to 630 Mrad Total Ionizing Dose (TID). These studies corfirmed negligible degradation of analog front-ends performance after irradiation. First sample chips have been also bump-bonded to 50 \ub5m 7 50 \ub5m and single readout electrode 25 \ub5m 7 100 \ub5m 3D sensors provided by Trento FBK. This represented a major milestone for the entire CHIPIX65 project, offering to the pixel community the first example of a complete readout chip in 65 nm CMOS technology coupled to such a kind of silicon detectors. Extensive characterizations with laser and radioactive sources have started. This paper briefly summarizes most important pre- and post-irradiation results, along with preliminary results obtained from chips bump-bonded to 3D sensors. Selected components of the CHIPIX65 demonstrator have been finally integrated into the large-scale RD53A prototype submitted at the end of summer 2017 by the CERN RD53 international collaboration on 65 nm CMOS technology

RD53 Collaboration and CHIPIX65 Project for the development of an innovative Pixel Front End Chip for HL-LHC

Pixel detectors at HL-LHC experiments will be exposed to unprecedented level of radiation and particle flux. This paper describes the program of development of an innovative pixel chip using a CMOS 65nm technology for the first time in HEP community, for experiments with extreme particle rates and radiation at future High Energy Physics colliders. The RD53 collaboration effort is described together with the CHIPIX65 INFN project

Study of cosmogenic activation above ground for the DarkSide-20k experiment

The activation of materials due to exposure to cosmic rays may become an important background source for experiments investigating rare event phenomena. DarkSide-20k, currently under construction at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, is a direct detection experiment for galactic dark matter particles, using a two-phase liquid-argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) filled with 49.7 tonnes (active mass) of Underground Argon (UAr) depleted in 39Ar. Despite the outstanding capability of discriminating / background in argon TPCs, this background must be considered because of induced dead time or accidental coincidences mimicking dark-matter signals and it is relevant for low-threshold electron-counting measurements. Here, the cosmogenic activity of relevant long-lived radioisotopes induced in the experiment has been estimated to set requirements and procedures during preparation of the experiment and to check that it is not dominant over primordial radioactivity; particular attention has been paid to the activation of the 120 t of UAr used in DarkSide-20k. Expected exposures above ground and production rates, either measured or calculated, have been considered in detail. From the simulated counting rates in the detector due to cosmogenic isotopes, it is concluded that activation in copper and stainless steel is not problematic. The activity of 39Ar induced during extraction, purification and transport on surface is evaluated to be 2.8% of the activity measured in UAr by DarkSide-50 experiment, which used the same underground source, and thus considered acceptable. Other isotopes in the UAr such as 37Ar and 3H are shown not to be relevant due to short half-life and assumed purification methods

Sensitivity projections for a dual-phase argon TPC optimized for light dark matter searches through the ionization channel

Dark matter lighter than 10  GeV/c2 encompasses a promising range of candidates. A conceptual design for a new detector, DarkSide-LowMass, is presented, based on the DarkSide-50 detector and progress toward DarkSide-20k, optimized for a low-threshold electron-counting measurement. Sensitivity to light dark matter is explored for various potential energy thresholds and background rates. These studies show that DarkSide-LowMass can achieve sensitivity to light dark matter down to the solar neutrino fog for GeV-scale masses and significant sensitivity down to 10  MeV/c2 considering the Migdal effect or interactions with electrons. Requirements for optimizing the detector’s sensitivity are explored, as are potential sensitivity gains from modeling and mitigating spurious electron backgrounds that may dominate the signal at the lowest energies

RD53 analog front-end processors for the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the High-Luminosity LHC

International audienceThis work discusses the design and the main results relevant to the characterization of analogfront-end processors in view of their operation in the pixel detector readout chips of ATLAS andCMS at the High-Luminosity LHC. The front-end channels presented in this paper are part ofRD53A, a large scale demonstrator designed in a 65 nm CMOS technology by the RD53 collaboration. The collaboration is now developing the full-sized readout chips for the actual experiments. Some details on the improvements implemented in the analog front-ends are provided inthe paper

Recent progress of RD53 Collaboration towards next generation Pixel Read-Out Chip for HL-LHC

open123openDemaria, N; Barbero, M.B.; Fougeron, D.; Gensolen, F.; Godiot, S.; Menouni, M.; Pangaud, P.; Rozanov, A.; Wang, A.; Bomben, M.; Calderini, G.; Crescioli, F.; Dortz, O. Le; Marchiori, G.; Dzahini, D.; Rarbi, F.E.; Gaglione, R.; Gonella, L.; Hemperek, T.; Huegging, F.; Karagounis, M.; Kishishita, T.; Krueger, H.; Rymaszewski, P.; Wermes, N.; Ciciriello, F.; Corsi, F.; Marzocca, C.; Robertis, G. De; Loddo, F.; Licciulli, F.; Andreazza, A.; Liberali, V.; Shojaii, S.; Stabile, A.; Bagatin, M.; Bisello, D.; Mattiazzo, S.; Ding, L.; Gerardin, S.; Giubilato, P.; Neviani, A.; Paccagnella, A.; Vogrig, D.; Wyss, J.; Bacchetta, N.; Canio, F. De; Gaioni, L.; Nodari, B.; Manghisoni, M.; Re, V.; Traversi, G.; Comotti, D.; Ratti, L.; Vacchi, C.; Beccherle, R.; Bellazzini, R.; Magazzu, G.; Minuti, M.; Morsani, F.; Palla, F.; Poulios, S.; Fanucci, L.; Rizzi, A.; Saponara, S.; Androsov, K.; Bilei, G.M.; Menichelli, M.; Conti, E.; Marconi, S.; Passeri, D.; Placidi, P.; Casa, G. Della; Mazza, G.; Rivetti, A.; Rolo, M.D. Da Rocha; Monteil, E.; Pacher, L.; Gajanana, D.; Gromov, V.; Hessey, N.; Kluit, R.; Zivkovic, V.; Havranek, M.; Janoska, Z.; Marcisovsky, M.; Neue, G.; Tomasek, L.; Kafka, V.; Sicho, P.; Vrba, V.; Vila, I.; Lopez-Morillo, E.; Aguirre, M.A.; Palomo, F.R.; Muñoz, F.; Abbaneo, D.; Christiansen, J.; Dannheim, D.; Dobos, D.; Linssen, L.; Pernegger, H.; Valerio, P.; Tehrani, N. Alipour; Bell, S.; Prydderch, M.L.; Thomas, S.; Christian, D.C.; Fahim, F.; Hoff, J.; Lipton, R.; Liu, T.; Zimmerman, T.; Garcia-Sciveres, M.; Gnani, D.; Mekkaoui, A.; Gorelov, I.; Hoeferkamp, M.; Seidel, S.; Toms, K.; Witt, J.N. De; Grillo, A.; Paternò, A.Demaria, N; Barbero, M. B.; Fougeron, D.; Gensolen, F.; Godiot, S.; Menouni, M.; Pangaud, P.; Rozanov, A.; Wang, A.; Bomben, M.; Calderini, G.; Crescioli, F.; Dortz, O. Le; Marchiori, G.; Dzahini, D.; Rarbi, F. E.; Gaglione, R.; Gonella, L.; Hemperek, T.; Huegging, F.; Karagounis, M.; Kishishita, T.; Krueger, H.; Rymaszewski, P.; Wermes, N.; Ciciriello, F.; Corsi, F.; Marzocca, C.; Robertis, G. De; Loddo, F.; Licciulli, F.; Andreazza, A.; Liberali, V.; Shojaii, S.; Stabile, A.; Bagatin, Marta; Bisello, Dario; Mattiazzo, Serena; Ding, Lili; Gerardin, Simone; Giubilato, Piero; Neviani, Andrea; Paccagnella, Alessandro; Vogrig, Daniele; Wyss, Jeffery; Bacchetta, N.; Canio, F. De; Gaioni, L.; Nodari, B.; Manghisoni, M.; Re, V.; Traversi, G.; Comotti, D.; Ratti, L.; Vacchi, C.; Beccherle, R.; Bellazzini, R.; Magazzu, G.; Minuti, M.; Morsani, F.; Palla, F.; Poulios, S.; Fanucci, L.; Rizzi, A.; Saponara, S.; Androsov, K.; Bilei, G. M.; Menichelli, M.; Conti, E.; Marconi, S.; Passeri, D.; Placidi, P.; Casa, G. Della; Mazza, G.; Rivetti, A.; Rolo, M. D. Da Rocha; Monteil, E.; Pacher, L.; Gajanana, D.; Gromov, V.; Hessey, N.; Kluit, R.; Zivkovic, V.; Havranek, M.; Janoska, Z.; Marcisovsky, M.; Neue, G.; Tomasek, L.; Kafka, V.; Sicho, P.; Vrba, V.; Vila, I.; Lopez Morillo, E.; Aguirre, M. A.; Palomo, F. R.; Muñoz, F.; Abbaneo, D.; Christiansen, J.; Dannheim, D.; Dobos, D.; Linssen, L.; Pernegger, H.; Valerio, P.; Tehrani, N. Alipour; Bell, S.; Prydderch, M. L.; Thomas, S.; Christian, D. C.; Fahim, F.; Hoff, J.; Lipton, R.; Liu, T.; Zimmerman, T.; Garcia Sciveres, M.; Gnani, D.; Mekkaoui, A.; Gorelov, I.; Hoeferkamp, M.; Seidel, S.; Toms, K.; Witt, J. N. De; Grillo, A.; Paternò, A

Design of analog front-ends for the RD53 demonstrator chip

InstrumentationInternational audienceThe RD53 collaboration is developing a large scale pixel front-end chip, which will be a tool to evaluate the performance of 65 nm CMOS technology in view of its application to the readout of the innermost detector layers of ATLAS and CMS at the HL-LHC. Experimental results of the characterization of small prototypes will be discussed in the frame of the design work that is currently leading to the development of the large scale demonstrator chip RD53A to be submitted in early 2017. The paper is focused on the analog processors developed in the framework of the RD53 collaboration, including three time over threshold front-ends, designed by INFN Torino and Pavia, University of Bergamo and LBNL and a zero dead time front-end based on flash ADC designed by a joint collaboration between the Fermilab and INFN. The paper will also discuss the radiation tolerance features of the front-end channels, which were exposed to up to 800 Mrad of total ionizing dose to reproduce the system operation in the actual experiment

Study on cosmogenic activation above ground for the DarkSide-20k project

International audienceThe activation of materials due to the exposure to cosmic rays may become an important background source for experiments investigating rare event phenomena. DarkSide-20k is a direct detection experiment for galactic dark matter particles, using a two-phase liquid argon time projection chamber filled with 49.7 tonnes (active mass) of Underground Argon (UAr) depleted in 39Ar. Here, the cosmogenic activity of relevant long-lived radioisotopes induced in the argon and other massive components of the set-up has been estimated; production of 120 t of radiopure UAr is foreseen. The expected exposure above ground and production rates, either measured or calculated, have been considered. From the simulated counting rates in the detector due to cosmogenic isotopes, it is concluded that activation in copper and stainless steel is not problematic. Activation of titanium, considered in early designs but not used in the final design, is discussed. The activity of 39Ar induced during extraction, purification and transport on surface, in baseline conditions, is evaluated to be 2.8% of the activity measured in UAr from the same source, and thus considered acceptable. Other products in the UAr such as 37Ar and 3H are shown to not be relevant due to short half-life and assumed purification methods