FPHX: A New Silicon Strip Readout Chip for the PHENIX Experiment at RHIC

The FPHX chip is a silicon strip readout chip developed at Fermilab for use in the FVTX Detector of the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. Each front end consists of an integrator which is AC coupled to a shaper, followed by a discriminator and a 3-bit analog-to-digital converter. The backend is a novel architecture in two stages that permits dead-timeless operation and high-speed readout with very low latency. A slow controller provides an interface for all on-chip programmable functions. This chip has been fabricated in the 0.25um TSMC process. All functionality including the analog front-end, the digital back-end, and the slow controller has been verified experimentally.