LOCx2, a Low-latency, Low-overhead, 2 x 5.12-Gbps Transmitter ASIC for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter Trigger Upgrade

TL;DR

LOCx2 is a high-speed, low-latency ASIC designed for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter trigger upgrade, transmitting data at 5.12 Gbps with minimal overhead and power consumption.

Contribution

This paper introduces LOCx2, a novel 2-channel transmitter ASIC optimized for low latency and overhead in high-energy physics experiments.

Findings

Achieves serial data transmission at 5.12 Gbps per channel.

Latency is less than 27.2 nanoseconds.

Power consumption is approximately 843 milliwatts.

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design and test results of LOCx2, a transmitter ASIC for the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter trigger upgrade. LOCx2 consists of two channels and each channel encodes ADC data with an overhead of 14.3% and transmits serial data at 5.12 Gbps with a latency of less than 27.2 ns. LOCx2 is fabricated with a commercial 0.25-um Silicon-on-Sapphire CMOS technology and is packaged in a 100-pin QFN package. The power consumption of LOCx2 is about 843 mW.