ALCOR (A Low-power Chip for Optical sensor Readout) is a mixed-signal ASIC developed for the readout of silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensors in the ePIC dual-radiator RICH (dRICH) detector at the future Electron–Ion Collider (EIC). The chip is designed to provide precise single-photon timing with low power consumption and a fully digital, trigger-less readout architecture. ALCOR has been extensively characterised in laboratory measurements and operated with different SiPM technologies. Its performance has been validated in beam-test campaigns using a dRICH prototype equipped with a large-area SiPM readout plane. A new version of the chip, ALCOR-64, has been developed to meet the requirements of the EIC environment, including increased channel density and bunch-crossing synchronisation. This contribution presents the main design concepts of the ALCOR ASIC, summarises the key performance results, and discusses the features introduced in the latest version for the ePIC-dRICH detector.
ALCOR: A SiPM readout chip for the ePIC-dRICH detector at the EIC
Calivà, A.;De Caro, A.;De Gruttola, D.;Funicello, N.;Ripoli, C.;
2026
Abstract
ALCOR (A Low-power Chip for Optical sensor Readout) is a mixed-signal ASIC developed for the readout of silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensors in the ePIC dual-radiator RICH (dRICH) detector at the future Electron–Ion Collider (EIC). The chip is designed to provide precise single-photon timing with low power consumption and a fully digital, trigger-less readout architecture. ALCOR has been extensively characterised in laboratory measurements and operated with different SiPM technologies. Its performance has been validated in beam-test campaigns using a dRICH prototype equipped with a large-area SiPM readout plane. A new version of the chip, ALCOR-64, has been developed to meet the requirements of the EIC environment, including increased channel density and bunch-crossing synchronisation. This contribution presents the main design concepts of the ALCOR ASIC, summarises the key performance results, and discusses the features introduced in the latest version for the ePIC-dRICH detector.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
