DEVELOPMENT OF A PIXEL READOUT CHIP COMPATIBLE WITH LARGE-AREA COVERAGE

A second version of the Omega pixel readout chip has been developed in order to make it compatible with large area coverage. Specific featur es of the new chip include a reset which can be applied immediately fo llowing a ''false'' trigger, an improved minimum strobe time of approx imately 100 ns, a readout clock rate of approximately 20 MHz and tri-s tate buffers on the output data lines. The excellent performance figur es of the first chip for noise (100 e- rms without detector and 170 e- rms with detector) and power consumption (30 muW/pixel) have been mai ntained. We demonstrate how with solder bump-bonding we can create hyb rid ''ladders'' which hermetically cover an area of approximately 5 mm X 50 mm. Potential problems of electrical matching and yield have bee n addressed and procedures are in place for selecting only ''good'' re adout chips for mounting.