Radiation-tolerant, low-mass, high bandwidth, flexible printed circuit cables for particle physics experiments

The design of meter long flexible printed circuit cables required for low-mass ultra-high speed signal transmission in the high radiation environment of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider is described. The design geometry is a differential embedded microstrip with 100 Ω nominal impedance. Minimal mass and maximal radiation hardness are pre-eminent considerations. Several dielectric materials are compared. To reduce mass, a cross hatched ground plane is applied. The long flexible printed circuit cables are characterized in bit error rate tests, attenuation versus frequency, mechanical response to temperature induced stress, and dimensional implications on radiation length. These tests are performed before and after irradiation with 1 MeV neutrons to 2×1016/cm2 and 800 MeV protons to 2×1016 1-MeV neutron equivalent/cm2. A 1.0 m Kapton cable with cross hatched ground plane, effective bandwidth of 4.976 gigabits per second, 0.0160% of a radiation length, and no detectable radiation-induced mechanical or electrical degradation is obtained.