Anode front-end electronics for the cathode strip chambers of the CMS Endcap Muon detector

The front-end electronics system for the anode signals of the CMS Endcap Muon cathode strip chambers has about 183,000 channels. The purposes of the anode front-end electronics are to acquire precise muon timing information for bunch crossing number identification at the Level-1 muon trigger system and to provide a coarse radial position of the muon track. Each anode channel consists of an input protection network, amplifier, shaper, constant-fraction discriminator, and a programmable delay. The essential parts of the electronics include a 16-channel amplifier-shaper-discriminator ASIC CMP16 and a 16-channel ASIC D16G providing programmable time delay. The ASIC CMP16 was optimized for the large cathode chamber size (up to 3×2.5 m2) and for the large input capacitance (up to 200 pF). The ASIC combines low power consumption (30 mW/channel) with good time resolution (2-3 ns). The delay ASIC D16G makes possible the alignment of signals with an accuracy of 2.2 ns. This paper presents the anode front-end electronics structure and results of the preproduction and the mass production tests, including radiation resistance and reliability tests. The special set of test equipment, techniques, and corresponding software developed and used in the test procedures are also described.