CLARO-CMOS: a fast, low power and radiation-hard front-end ASIC for single-photon counting in 0.35 micron CMOS technology

The CLARO-CMOS is a prototype ASIC designed for fast photon counting with multi-anode photomultiplier tubes (MaPMT). The CLARO features a 5 ns peaking time, a recovery time to baseline smaller than 25 ns, and a power consumption of less than 1 mW per channel. The chip was designed in 0.35 μm CMOS technology, and was tested for radiation hardness with neutrons up to 1014 1 MeV neq/cm2, X-rays up to 40 kGy and protons up to 76 kGy. Its capability to read out single photons at high rate from a Hamamatsu R11265 MaPMT, the baseline photon detector for the LHCb RICH upgrade, was demonstrated both with test bench measurements and with actual signals from a R11265 MaPMT. The presented results allowed CLARO to be chosen as the front-end readout chip in the upgraded LHCb RICH detector.