Operation and Performance of the CMS Silicon Tracker

The CMS silicon tracker is the largest silicon detector ever built. It consists of a pixel detector with 66 million channels and a 200 m$^2$ area silicon strip detector with 10 million read out channels. The presentation describes the operation of this detector in 2010 and 2011 at the LHC during proton-proton as well as heavy ion collisions. Reconstructed photon conversions and nuclear interactions are used to evaluate the material description of the tracker. The resolution and efficiency of the track and vertex reconstruction are measured with data and compared to the results from simulation. Finally, an outlook is given to the considerations towards an upgrade of the CMS silicon strip tracker for the operation at the high luminosity upgrade of the LHC. Beside the challenges to develop sensors withstanding the high radiation field, CMS is exploring options and developing solutions that would allow to include tracking information into the Level-1 trigger of CMS.