Development of new kind of GRPC for a semi-digital hadronic calorimeter

A new concept of high granularity hadronic calorimeter using thin Glass Resistive Plate Chambers (GRPCs) as sensitive medium with embedded semi-digital readout electronics is under development within the CALICE collaboration. CALICE calorimeters are intended to be used in the future linear collider experiments. To validate this new concept a prototype of 1 m is being conceived. Several GRPCs as large as 1 m were built with a new design, reducing the dead zones and improving the gas distribution system. The GRPCs were tested with an electronics board of the same size. A readout board containing 144 64-channel ASICs was conceived and built for this purpose.