Hardware Setup

The APV setup at HEPHY fulfills a functionality similar to the final CMS readout system, but it is smaller and in several aspects easier to handle. Fig.  shows the building blocks of our setup for the readout of a single APV hybrid without an attached detector.

Figure: Schematic view of the simple APV setup at HEPHY.

This configuration is typically used in a laboratory for testing chips or hybrids and their properties. The APV hybrid is connected to a repeater board, which buffers the signals and provides local voltage regulators. It is connected to three VME boards: the APV sequencer, which basically delivers clock and trigger signals, the VME-$\rm I^2C$, which hosts an $\rm I^2C$ bus master, and a multi-channel VME-ADC. The configuration shown here has four analog channels, thus it can read out up to four APVs directly or up to eight APVs when using the APVMUX, which combines the output of APV pairs onto one analog line (see section , p. ). A commercial VME bus controller provides an interface to the PC, which controls the modules and reads back data.

The APV25 hybrid, repeater and the VME modules were designed and built at HEPHY. These home-made components of the APV setup will be discussed in the following sections.