AMBRA: A Multi-Event Buffering and Readout ASIC for the Silicon Drift Detectors of the ALICE Experiment

This paper describes a multi-event buffering and readout ASIC used in the front-end electronics for the silicon drift detectors (SDDs) of the ALICE experiment. The ASIC, named AMBRA, provides a number of control functions, mainly baseline equalization, first level data compression and a four event buffering to the data read-out of the SDD. It also controls the data and configuration flow between the front-end electronics and the data acquisition circuits.