A digital front-end readout microsystem for calorimetry at LHC-the FERMI Project

The authors present a digital solution to the front-end electronics for calorimetric detectors at future supercolliders based on high-speed analog-to-digital converters, a fully programmable pipeline/digital filter chain, and local intelligence. Questions of error correction, fault-tolerance, and system redundancy are also considered. A system integration of a multichannel device in a multichip, silicon-on-silicon microsystem hybrid will be used. This solution allows a new level of integration of complex analog and digital functions, with excellent flexibility in mixing technologies for the different functional blocks. This type of VLSI multichip integration allows a high degree of programmability at both the function and the system level, and offers the possibility of customizing the microsystem with detector-specific functions.<>