Dedicated very front-end electronics for an ILC prototype hadronic calorimeter with SiPM read-out

The SPIROC chip is a dedicated very front-end electronics for an ILC prototype hadronic calorimeter with Silicon photomultiplier (or MPPC) readout. This ASIC is due to equip a 10,000-channel demonstrator in 2009. SPIROC is an evolution of FLC_SiPM used for the ILC AHCAL physics prototype [1]. SPIROC was submitted in June 2007 and will be tested in September 2007. It embeds cutting edge features that fulfil ILC final detector requirements. It has been realized in 0.35m SiGe technology. It has been developed to match the requirements of large dynamic range, low noise, low consumption, high precision and large number of readout channels needed. SPIROC is an auto-triggered, bi-gain, 36-channel ASIC which allows to measure on each channel the charge from one photoelectron to 2000 and the time with a 100ps accurate TDC. An analogue memory array with a depth of 16 for each channel is used to store the time information and the charge measurement. A 12-bit Wilkinson ADC has been embedded to digitize the analogue memory content (time and charge on 2 gains). The data are then stored in a 4kbytes RAM. A very complex digital part has been integrated to manage all theses features and to transfer the data to the DAQ which is described on [2]. After an exhaustive description, the extensive measurement results of that new front-end chip will be presented.