The new read-out electronics for the BaF/sub 2/-calorimeter TAPS

A highly compact and fast VME based read-out board for BaF/sub 2/ scintillation detectors has been designed, developed and finally tested in an in-beam experiment. Adapted to the excellent properties of BaF/sub 2/, the unit allows to digitize time, energy and pulse-shape information of 4 detector channels in parallel. The board is piggy-back plugged onto a motherboard containing a high-speed 12-bit ADC and the VME interface, commercially available in the customized version CAEN V874A. Both together combine to one single VME slot. A first measurement of the photon response of a TAPS sub-array with energy marked photons up to 2.6 GeV has documented the full functionality and excellent performance.