A Radiation-Hard Dual Channel 4-bit Pipeline for a 12-bit 40 MS/s ADC Prototype with extended Dynamic Range for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter Readout Electronics Upgrade at the CERN LHC

TL;DR

This paper presents a radiation-hard dual-channel 12-bit pipeline ADC designed for CERN's ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter upgrade, achieving high performance and robustness in radiation environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel 12-bit pipeline ADC with extended dynamic range, radiation hardness, and implemented gain algorithms, fabricated in 130 nm CMOS technology.

Findings

68 dB SNDR at 18 MHz for 40 MS/s operation

No performance degradation after irradiation

Consumes 55 mW per channel

Abstract

The design of a radiation-hard dual channel 12-bit 40 MS/s pipeline ADC with extended dynamic range is presented, for use in the readout electronics upgrade for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeters at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The design consists of two pipeline A/D channels with four Multiplying Digital-to-Analog Converters with nominal 12-bit resolution each. The design, fabricated in the IBM 130 nm CMOS process, shows a performance of 68 dB SNDR at 18 MHz for a single channel at 40 MS/s while consuming 55 mW/channel from a 2.5 V supply, and exhibits no performance degradation after irradiation. Various gain selection algorithms to achieve the extended dynamic range are implemented and tested.