A four-channel bipolar monolithic preamplifier for RHIC dimuon pad readout

The authors present a four-channel, low-power-consumption bipolar monolithic preamplifier designed to amplify signals from pads with detector capacitance values from 10 pF to 50 pF used in a RHIC (relativistic heavy ion collider) dimuon experiment. The circuit utilizes a folded-cascode topology with a novel feedforward compensation that improves the low-capacitance transient response and provides self-biasing without resorting to bandgap or current references. The circuit was fabricated by Harris Semiconductor in the VHF dielectrically isolated complementary bipolar process. Measured data for gamma irradiation to 1.25 Mrad are presented.<
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