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Summary
Our goal has been to have DC-DC converters capable of delivering an output of 1.2 volts with load currents of several amperes. To our knowledge there was no IC process that was capable of running at 12 volts to give us a 10:1 voltage ratio with the SiTracker radiation hardness. In 2008, IHP Microelectronics successfully added 12 V FET transistor switches to their existing process, by the addition of 2 more mask layers.
We emphasize that the radiation damage limits the maximum input voltage because of the processing and oxide thickness. IHP has worked on this Silicon LDMOS process for 5 years or more. To the best of our knowledge there is no other foundry making 12 V devices with 0.25 µm process. At the moment there is no commercial device available with this process.
Plug in power cards with commercial converters devices are being developed by our group to test the Hybrids being developed by the ATLAS Si tracker upgrade group. These cards will use commercial devices that are not likely to be radiation hard. The current requirements for the 20 chip hybrids are now 4 amps and we are developing boards for the
1. Converter chips Maxim 8864 and IR3841
2. Spiral and spring/ solenoid coils
The above will be 4 separate pcbs. We need to fully power the new hybrids from this power cards to study both conduction and radiated noise.
We are continuing to irradiate new commercial device that in our view may tolerate high radiation levels.