Upgrading the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter Electronics

The Tile Calorimeter (TileCal) is the central hadronic calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment at LHC. Around 2023, after the upgrade of the LHC (High Luminosity LHC, phase 2) the peak luminosity will increase by a factor of 5 compared to the design value (1034 cm-2 s-1), thus requiring an upgrade of the TileCal readout electronics. Except the 9852 photomultipliers (PMTs), most of the on- and off-detector electronics will be replaced, with the aim of digitizing all PMT pulses at 40 MHz at the front-end level and sending them with 10 Gbps optical links to the back-end electronics. Moreover, to increase reliability, redundancy will be introduced at different levels. Three different options are currently being investigated for the front-end electronics and extensive test beam studies are planned to select the best option. One demonstrator prototype module is also planned to be inserted in TileCal in 2014 that will include hybrid electronic components able to probe the new design, but still compatible with the present readout architecture.