Two low-power optical data transmission ASICs for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter readout upgrade

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Vol. 924; pp. 160 - 165
• Main Authors: Xiao, Le, Zhou, Wei, Sun, Quan, Deng, Binwei, Gong, Datao, Guo, Di, He, Huiqin, Hou, Suen, Liu, Chonghan, Liu, Tiankuan, Thomas, James, Wang, Jian, Xiang, Annie C., Yang, Dongxu, Ye, Jingbo, Zhao, Xiandong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 21.04.2019
• Subjects: Digital electronic circuits; Front-end electronics for detector readout; Trigger concepts and systems (hardware and software); Front-end electronics for detector readout; Trigger concepts and systems (hardware and software); Digital electronic circuits
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2018.07.021

A serializer ASIC and a VCSEL driver ASIC are needed for the ATLAS liquid argon calorimeter readout phase-I upgrade. The baseline ASICs are the serializer LOCx2 and the VCSEL driver LOCld, designed in a 0.25-μm Silicon-on-Sapphire (SoS) CMOS technology. Based on a 130-nm CMOS technology, we design two pin-to-pin-compatible backup ASICs, LOCx2-130 and LOCld-130. Their power consumptions are much lower then their counterparts. We present the design of LOCx2-130 and LOCld-130. The test results of LOCx2-130 are also presented. •We present a serializer ASIC, LOCx2-130, and a VCSEL driver ASIC, LOCld-130, for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter trigger upgrade.•LOCx2-130 consists of two serializer channels and each channel encodes ADC data and transmits serial data at 4.8 Gbps with a latency of less than 40.7 ns. The power consumption of LOCx2-130 is about 440 mW.•LOCld-130 is a dual-channel VCSEL driver ASIC and each channel works up to 5.12 Gbps. The total power consumption of LOCld-130 is 112 mW (56 mW/channel) including the VCSELs.•Both chips meet the requirements of the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter trigger upgrade and the power consumptions are much lower than the previous version.