The front-end system of the silicon drift detectors of ALICE

The ALICE experiment at CERN will have an inner tracker made of six barrels of semiconductor detectors. The two intermediate layers of the system will employ Silicon Drift Detectors (SDD) technology. The front-end electronics of the SDDs, which required the development of two full-custom integrated circuits, is reviewed in this paper. The design of the front-end hybrid is discussed and results obtained with full-size prototypes are presented.