SLHC Upgrade Plans for the ATLAS Pixel Detector

The ATLAS Pixel Detector is an 80 million channels silicon tracking system designed to detect charged tracks and secondary vertices with high precision. An upgrade of the ATLAS Pixel detector is presently being considered. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be upgraded to provide a ten fold increased luminosity leading to increased radiation doses and significantly higher occupancy in the region of the ATLAS Inner Detector and especially in the Pixel Detector. The extreme radiation levels at planed Super Large Hadron Collider (SLHC) lead to a number of specific design challenges for read-out integrated circuits, silicon sensors and optical signal transmission. Options considered for a new detector are discussed, as well as some important R&D activities, such as investigations towards novel detector geometries and novel processes.