The Silicon Strip Tracker for CMS

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is one of the experiments that will be installed at the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in construction at CERN. The Silicon Strip Tracker (SST) constitutes, in conjunction with the Pixel Tracker, the inner tracking system of CMS. It occupies a cylindrical region of 2.4 m in diameter and 5.6 m in length, instrumented with more than 24,000 micro-strip sensors for a total of about 10 millions channels. Its layout and expected performances are described in this paper. The silicon sensors of the SST will operate in a high radiation environment. The CMS collaboration has carried out an extensive R&D program in order to minimize their radiation damage. A review of that program and the main results that determined the final choices for the sensor technology are given.