Non-standard approach to charge signal processing in CMOS MAPS for charged particle trackers

In this work, the use of continuous time charge amplification and shaping is proposed for processing the signal delivered by CMOS pixel sensors in charged particle tracking applications. Such a choice aims at exploiting the large scale of integration of modern deep submicron CMOS technologies to incorporate both the potential for thin detector fabrication, inherent in the concept of monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS), and the data sparsification capabilities featured by hybrid pixels into the design of a single device. With respect to classical MAPS, adoption of the above readout method involves a substantial change in the guidelines for the design of the front-end electronics and of the whole elementary cell, in order not to jeopardize the collection efficiency of the sensitive electrode. For the purpose of supporting the feasibility of the proposed solution, the paper discusses some experimental results relevant to monolithic CMOS sensor prototypes, fabricated in a 0.13 μm technology, which were designed according to the mentioned rules. ©2005 IEEE.