Evaluation of commercial ADC radiation tolerance for accelerator experiments

TL;DR

This study evaluates the radiation tolerance of 17 commercial ADCs for high energy physics experiments, focusing on ionizing dose effects and single event effects, and discusses mitigation strategies for collider environments.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive radiation testing data for commercial ADCs and analyzes their suitability for use in high radiation environments like the LHC.

Findings

17 ADCs tested for radiation effects

High tolerance observed in specific 12 and 14-bit ADCs

Mitigation strategies for single event effects discussed

Abstract

Electronic components used in high energy physics experiments are subjected to a radiation background composed of high energy hadrons, mesons and photons. These particles can induce permanent and transient effects that affect the normal device operation. Ionizing dose and displacement damage can cause chronic damage which disable the device permanently. Transient effects or single event effects are in general recoverable with time intervals that depend on the nature of the failure. The magnitude of these effects is technology dependent with feature size being one of the key parameters. Analog to digital converters are components that are frequently used in detector front end electronics, generally placed as close as possible to the sensing elements to maximize signal fidelity. We report on radiation effects tests conducted on 17 commercially available analog to digital converters and extensive single event effect measurements on specific twelve and fourteen bit ADCs that presented high tolerance to ionizing dose. Mitigation strategies for single event effects (SEE) are discussed for their use in the large hadron collider environment.