The LHCb vertex locator and level-1 trigger

LHCb will study CP violation and other rare phenomena in B-decays with a forward detector at the LHC. One of the challenges is to design a fast and efficient trigger. The design of the silicon Vertex Locator (VELO) has been driven by the requirements of one of the most selective triggers of the experiment. The VELO trigger is designed to work at an input rate of 1 MHz. The requirements and implementation of the VELO and the associated trigger are summarised, followed by a description of an upgrade which improves the trigger performance significantly. (3 refs).