Performance of a silicon microstrip detector in a very high rate environment

A silicon microstrip detector (SSD) system for use in very-high-rate experiments was designed for experiment E77 at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The detector electronics were designed using application-specific IC (ASIC) chip sets where commercial circuits where not suitable. The electronics for the SSD were designed to operate with interaction rates up to 10/sup 7/ interactions/sec. In addition to speed, the detector for the current run is very compact with 10000 channels of active detector in a volume of 5 cm*5 cm*10 cm. The strip pitch ranges from 25 mu m in the center of the detector near the target to 100 mu m pitch at the most downstream, outer edge of the detector. The readout is a latch design with efficiencies of approximately 95% even in the presence of radiation damage and high leakage currents. The detector and associated amplifier electronics have been operated at 20 degrees C and were designed to operate at 8 degrees C.< >