Implementation of a serial protocol for the liquid argon calorimeters of the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the status of a serial protocol developed in the framework of ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS), a high energy physics experiment that will be installed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) based at CERN. This link will be used to control the front-end electronics of the liquid argon calorimeters, located in an irradiated environment. After a technical description of the communication system architecture, we detail the features and performances of the designed components. This protocol could be applied in other contexts (nuclear physics, industry) where a fast, reliable and radhard serial communication is needed.