Performance of the ALICE TPC front end card

This paper addresses the performance of the Front End Card (FEC) for the ALICE Time Projection Chamber (TPC) on measured data. The ALICE TPC Front End Electronics consists of 557568 channels. A single readout channel is made of two basic units: (a) an analogue ASIC (PASA) that incorporates the shaping/amplifier circuits for 16 channels; (b) a mixed-signal ASIC (ALTRO) that integrates 16 channels, each consisting of a 10-bit 25-MSPS ADC, the baseline subtraction, tail cancellation filter, zero suppression and multi-event buffer. The complete readout chain is contained in FECs, with 128 channels each, connected to the detector by means of kapton cables. A fraction of the final electronics (1024 channels) has been characterized in a test that incorporates a prototype of the ALICE TPC as well as many other components of the final set-up. The tests show that the system meets all design requirements.