MSc thesis presentation by Sara Al-Tawil

Design and verification of particle tracking module with integrated pixel readout, optical data transmission and local power regulation

The LHCb collaboration is preparing a Phase-II Upgrade of the detector for installation during the LHC Long Shutdown 4 (2032–2034). Operating in the HL-LHC environment imposes more extreme requirements on the tracking system, especially the VErtex LOcator (VELO), which must reconstruct primary and secondary vertices with high precision despite a 7.5-fold increase in interactions per bunch crossing. The expected particle flux will push the hybrid pixel sensors and front-end ASICs to cope with input rates up to 8 Ghits/s, resulting in more than 30 Tbit/s of data to be read out. To meet these challenges, new front-end technologies such as the PicoPix ASIC are under development. To support this ongoing work and to validate the electrical connectivity and integration of the associated CERN modules, a dedicated test board, NEMO PCB, was designed. The NEMO board is the first integration demonstrator combining the Timepix4 pixel ASIC (while PicoPix is under the development) with lpGBT for control and communication, VTRx+ optical module and photonic integrated circuit (SystemPIC) for optical data transmission, and bPOL12 radiation-tolerant power converters. The board is designed as a flexible test platform to validate the combined architecture, prepare for future PicoPix-based modules, and enable upcoming beam tests.