The PASTA chip for the silicon micro strip sensor of the PANDA MVD

In the Micro Vertex Detector, which is the innermost detector of PANDA, there are two different types of sensors: hybrid pixel and double sided micro strips. My work is focused on the development of the ASIC readout for the strips, which in the PANDA experiment must cope with a hit rate up to 50 kHz per channel. The energy loss measurement of the particles crossing the silicon sensor is obtained by implementing the Time over Threshold technique. The first PASTA (PANDA Strip ASIC) prototype is based on a Time to Digital Converter with an analog clock interpolator which combines good time resolution with a low power consumption. A full size chip was developed in a 0.11μ m CMOS technology and delivered in Autumn 2015. It features 64 channels with both analog and digital parts, a digital global controller, LVDS drivers and integrated bias. In the presentation, an overview of PASTA and the results of the first tests is presented.