ATHENA warm ASIC for the X-IFU electronics

Si Chen; Damien Prêle; Bernard Courty; Fabrice Voisin; Jean Mesquida

doi:10.1117/12.2561072

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13 December 2020 ATHENA warm ASIC for the X-IFU electronics

Si Chen, Damien Prêle, Bernard Courty, Fabrice Voisin, Jean Mesquida

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Proceedings Volume 11444, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 1144441 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2561072
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2020, Online Only

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Abstract

The X-IFU instrument is one of the payloads of the ESA ATHENA observatory, offering an unprecedented high spectral resolution of X-ray. In the readout chain of the X-IFU instrument, the first warm stage is the WFEE subsystem. It comprises low-noise amplifiers, current sources, a serial bus and housekeeping elements. Until now, three ASICs dedicated to this subsystem have been developed and fully characterised. They all use a 350 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The first version was to verify the feasibility of basic topologies and radiation robustness of the technology, that has already been reported in previous papers. Based on the results of the first version, the second version was for testing the low-noise amplifier, the serial bus and the thermometer and the third ASIC is a complete version integrating all the components of one WFEE FDM channel. This paper presents these two ASICs and their representative experimental results as an update on the WFEE microelectronics. Moreover, following the shift of the readout multiplexing scheme from FDM to TDM, a new version adapting to technical changes has also been developed and current manufacturing. It is discussed at the end of the paper.

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Si Chen, Damien Prêle, Bernard Courty, Fabrice Voisin, and Jean Mesquida "ATHENA warm ASIC for the X-IFU electronics", Proc. SPIE 11444, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 1144441 (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2561072

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