The VMM3a User's Guide

The VMM is a custom Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). It was designed for the New Small Wheel upgrade of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer at CERN. It is used in the front-end readout electronics of both the Micromegas and sTGC detectors. It was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) with its latest version, VMM3a, by the DG circuits on behalf of BNL. The L0 circuitry has been design by Sorin Martoiu (IFIN–HH, DFPE). The ASIC is fabricated in the 130nm Global Foundries 8RF-DM process (former IBM 8RF-DM). The VMM3a has been proposed for many other experiments and application. It is used either packaged in a Ball Grid Array (BGA) with outline dimensions of 21 × 21 mm2 and 1 mm pitch, or wire-bonded.