A Low Noise CMOS Integrated Signal Processor for Multi-Element Particle Detectors

A full custom chip has been built for readout of a multi-element silicon detector in the UA2 collider experiment at CERN. The low-noise performance enables the use of this chip for detecting random particles or single X-ray photons of medium energy (~ 20 keV). It can be used equally well in various other types of particle detectors which produce random signals. The noise is sufficiently low (≪ 0.09 fC r.m.s.) for detection of signals of ~ 0.8 fC, corresponding to 20 keV energy deposit in a silicon detector.