Development of active sensor units for highly granular calorimeters at future colliders
Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
Final Report Abstract
The CALICE collaboration pursues the development of highly granular calorimeters for a future linear collider, which is proposed for the detailed investigations of the recently discovered Higgs boson. In this context, DESY is leading an international effort to develop a hadron calorimeter (HCAL) based on scintillator tiles read out by novel photo-sensors, so-called SiPMs. The challenging and unprecedented channel density requires the integration of front-end electronics into the detector volume, which at the same time has to be kept very compact. It is a sandwich structure of stainless steel or absorber plates, interleaved with active detection layers. They comprise the scintillator tiles equipped with photo-sensors and the electronics boards (PCBs) which collect the signals and carry the highly integrated read-out chips (ASICs) for the further signal processing and digitisation. Heidelberg is developing a new ASIC, called KLAUS, compatible with a larger range of possible photo-sensor types, which are under rapid development in industry. DESY concentrates on system integration aspects and develops the PCB, which connects to sensors, tiles and interfaces and is one of the main cost drivers of a large detector, where several thousand square-metres would be needed. Within the framework of a joint German Korean research program, cooperation with a Korean group at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Seoul, has been intensified. SKKU had first expertise with PCBs developed by the French partners in the CALICE collaboration for a parallel silicon based calorimeter project and contacts to local electronics industry. During the past years, research and development at the university of Heidelberg, at DESY, and at their partners in academia and industry, led to significant improvements of all components of the active sensor units of a scintillator tile calorimeter with SiPM read-out, which resulted in a simplified design, amenable at mass production. The goal of the DFG-supported project was to develop compact and cost-effective solutions for the read-out boards, taking constrains from industrial production into account. The travel funds were used to attend 2 meetings in Seoul, in 2013 and 2014. At the first meeting it was agreed to clarify intellectual property issues on both sides and then send design data from DESY to SKKU for initial discussion with potential industrial partners. Following that, a subsequent dedicated 2-day meeting between DESY and SKKU representatives was held at SKKU in November 2014. Presentations on achievements and plans on both sides were given by junior and senior scientists. One part of the meeting was held at the premises of a mid-size electronics manufacturing company, EOS, at Incheon. The production infrastructure and the technical competences of the producer were shown, and the design of the PCB was presented, with a focus on particular challenges in the various production steps that had been encountered in the past. Possibilities to reduce production cost were discussed as well. EOS produced two small series of prototype boards. The second series had no fault, was tested successfully for electrical properties and surveyed to verify mechanical dimensions. Following the in principle positive experience and to benefit from having overcome the initial obstacles, it was agreed to continue the cooperation with the Korean company and repeat the production using the updated design. The lessons learnt about production difficulties and cost factors has entered into the more recent designs which are easier to produce, open to a larger set of producers, and less costly. The realization of a future liner collider is currently under evaluation at government level in Japan. Should the project move forward, these contacts to a competent partner in Asia would certainly bear fruit.
Publications
- "Performance of the Large Scale Prototypes of the CALICE Tile Hadron Calorimeter", IEEE-NSSS 2013, Seoul
Mathias Reinecke
(See online at https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NSSMIC.2013.6829522) - Characterization results and first applications of KlauS - an ASIC for SiPM charge and fast discrim- ination readout. IEEE NSS/MIC Conference Proceeding, Seoul, pages 1–4, 2013
K. Briggl, W. Shen, T. Harion, R. Hagdorn, P. Eckert, T. Klapdor- Kleingrothaus, M. Dorn, and H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
(See online at https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NSSMIC.2013.6829778) - A dedicated ana- log digital converter for silicon photomultiplier readout. IEEE NSS/MIC Conference Proceeding, Seattle, 2014
W. Shen, K. Briggl, H. Chen, and H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
(See online at https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NSSMIC.2014.7431044) - Commissioning of the New Multilayer Integration Prototype with SiPM Readout of the CALICE Tile Hadron Calorimeter, IEEE-NSS 2014, Seattle
Aliakbar Ebrahimi
(See online at https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NSSMIC.2014.7431153) - A highly granular scintillator-based hadron calorimeter prototype with integrated readout, XVIIth International Conference on Calorimetry in Particle Physics (CALOR2016), Daegu, Republic of Korea, 15-20 May 2016
Oskar Hartbrich
- KLauS: A low power silicon photomultiplier charge read- out ASIC in 0.18 UMC CMOS. Journal of Instrumentation, 11(03):C03045, 2016
K. Briggl, H. Chen, D. Schimansky, W. Shen, V. Stankova, and H.-C. Schultz-Coulon
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/11/03/C03045)
