The Micro Vertex Detector of the Compressed Baryonic Matter Experiment - A Read-Out Concept

The Compressed Baryonic Matter Experiment (CBM) is one of the core experiments of the future FAIR facility at Darmstadt/Germany. This fixed-target experiment will explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter in the regime of highest net baryon densities with numerous probes, among them open charm. Reconstructing those short lived particles requires a vacuum compatible Micro Vertex Detector (MVD) with unprecedented properties. Its sensor technology has to feature a spatial resolution of <5 µm, a non-ionizing radiation tolerance of >10¹³neq/cm², an ionizing radiation tolerance of >3 Mrad and a time resolution a few 10 µs. To operate the MVD-sensors, power supply as well as steering signals must be delivered and maintained such that all sensors are running synchronously. Moreover, a data stream of about 1.5 Gbit/s/sensor-output must be processed by the DAQ system. This contribution will show a concept of the CBM-MVD read-out chain which demonstrated its flexibility and durability during the CBM-MVD prototype project [1] and discuss the improvements which must be addressed in that chain in order to handle the final CBM-MVD sensors.

[1] M. Koziel et al., Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 732 (2013), pp. 515–518C.