2–6 Feb 2026
TIFR, Mumbai
Asia/Kolkata timezone

Smartpixels: radiation-hard ASICs with on-chip neural networks in 28 nm CMOS

5 Feb 2026, 15:00
15m
TIFR, Mumbai

TIFR, Mumbai

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Navy Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai 400005, India
Oral AI in hardware trigger Parallel Session-III

Speaker

SHEKAR, Danush (University of Illinois Chicago (US))

Description

The smartpixels project is developing radiation-hard ASICs with embedded neural networks, fabricated using a 28 nm CMOS process, to enable data reduction at source using single-layer hit information in highly granular tracking detectors. This technology addresses the strict bandwidth and power constraints of fine-pitch trackers essential for future particle collider experiments, while simultaneously enhancing high-priority physics, especially signatures with heavy quark decays. For instance, smartpixels can improve low transverse-momentum (pT) b-tagging to increase acceptance of Higgs pair production with low invariant mass. The first implementation of the smartpixels ASIC integrates a filtering neural network that classifies the pT of incident particles based on charge cluster patterns in the sensors. This talk will describe the prototyped 1.6 mm^2 ASIC design (featuring two 16x16 pixel matrices of 25x25 um^2 pixels, with total power consumption of <6uW/pixel or <1W/cm^2), along with characterization and performance results evaluated at bunch crossing clock frequency. In parallel, filtering and regression networks to infer incident particle properties are being developed and evaluated for future on-chip implementations. Algorithmic studies assessing the impact of sensor geometry, radiation damage, electronic noise, and Lorentz drift on neural network performance will also be discussed.

Position Graduate student
Affiliation University of Illinois, Chicago
Country USA

Authors

ABADJIEV, Daniel BADEA, Anthony (University of Chicago (US)) BEAN, Alice (The University of Kansas (US)) BERRY, Douglas Ryan (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US)) DAS, Arghya Ranjan (Purdue University (US)) DELINE, Tom DI GUGLIELMO, Giuseppe (Fermilab) DI PETRILLO, Karri Folan (University of Chicago) DICKINSON, Jennet Elizabeth (Cornell University (US)) FAHIM, Farah (Fermilab) GINGU, Cristian (Fermilab) GRAY, Lindsey (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US)) JIANG, David (Univ. Illinois at Urbana Champaign (US)) LITTMANN, Mira Sydney (University of Chicago (US)) LIU, Miaoyuan (Purdue University (US)) MAKSIMOVIC, Petar (Johns Hopkins University (US)) MILLS, Corrinne (University of Illinois Chicago (US)) NEUBAUER, Mark (Univ. Illinois at Urbana Champaign (US)) PARPILLON, Benjamin (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US)) QUINN, Adam (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US)) SHEKAR, Danush (University of Illinois Chicago (US)) SWARTZ, Morris (Johns Hopkins University (JHU)) SYAL, Chinar (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US)) TRAN, Nhan (Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (US)) WEISS, Benjamin (Cornell University) Ms YOO, Jieun (UIC) YOU, Eric

Presentation materials