General Purpose Silicon Trigger Board for the CMS Pixel Read Out Chips

A semester research project was completed at Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zürich) and the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in the spring of 2010. A new kind of trigger based on silicon pixel sensors was developed for the commissioning of the current Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) pixel detector. Prior to this trigger there was no silicon sensor based trigger that used the same technology as the pixel detector. The current trigger systems involve cumbersome photomultiplier tubes and Nuclear Instrument Module (NIM) crates to process the signals. To improve on these trigger systems it was thought to develop a trigger using pixel technology in the form of a printed circuit board that assimilates the signal processing circuitry. The board worked well, although there were limitations (e.g. crosstalk occurred so copper shielding was needed). A second generation trigger board currently exists. It fixes many of the problems encountered with the first board.