Status of HIE-ISOLDE SC Linac Upgrade

The HIE-ISOLDE upgrade project at CERN aims at increasing the energy of radioactive beams from 3MeV/u up to 10 MeV/u with mass-to-charge ratio in the range 2.5-4.5. The objective is obtained by replacing part of the existing normal conducting linac with superconducting Nb/Cu cavities. The new accelerator requires the production of 32 superconducting cavities in three phases: 10 high-beta cavities for phase 1 (2016), 10 high-beta cavities for phase 2 (2017) and possibly 12 low-beta cavities for phase 3 (2020). Half of the phase 1 production is completed with 5 quarter-wave superconducting cavities ready to be installed in the first cryomodule. The status of the cavity production and the RF performance are presented. The optimal linac working configuration to minimize cryogenic load and maximize accelerating gradient is discussed.