The Silicon Inner Tracker for LHCb

A silicon strip detector is being developed for the Inner Tracker of the LHCb experiment. The Inner Tracker consists of nine planar tracking stations and covers a total sensitive area of about 14 m/sup 2/. Experimental boundary conditions suggest detectors with a read- out pitch of about 240 mu m and a strip length of 22 cm, and front- end electronics with a fast shaping time of the order of 25 ns. Material budget is a crucial issue since mechanical supports and front-end electronics are located inside the acceptance of the experiment. Studies on the sensor geometry, front-end electronics and detector mechanics are presented. (9 refs).