Characterization of a wide dynamic-range, radiation-tolerant charge-digitizer asic for monitoring of Beam losses

An Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) has been designed and fabricated to provide a compact solution to digitize current signals from ionization chambers and diamond detectors, employed as beam loss monitors at CERN and several other high energy physics facilities. The circuit topology has been devised to accept positive and negative currents, to have a wide dynamic range (above 120 dB), withstand radiation levels over 10 Mrad and offer different modes of operation, covering a broad range of applications. Furthermore, an internal conversion reference is employed in the digitization, to provide an accurate absolute measurement. This paper discusses the detailed characterization of the first prototype: linearity, radiation tolerance and temperature dependence of the conversion, as well as implications and system-level considerations regarding its use for beam instrumentation applications in a high energy physics facility.