Fabian Hummer

The CMS high-granularity calorimeter (HGCAL) is going to replace the current endcap calorimeters of the CMS detector at CERN, and is one of the major upgrades of CMS for the high-luminosity LHC. HGCAL is a sampling calorimeter wit 47 layers and more than 3 million readout channels in each endcap. There are two detector technologies used at HGCAL: The front and inner sections of the calorimeter, which are exposed to high radiation, are instrumented using silicon sensors. Additionally, the outer part of the hadronic section is made of plastic scintillator tiles read out with SiPMs.

The high granularity of sensor cells, as well as good time resolution, are necessary to cope with the event pileup, which will be 3-5 times higher than in the current runs of the LHC. HGCAL thus requires a high-performance readout system that is able to handle the large data rates, and the configuration and control of more than 6000 detector modules. This readout system is based on the Serenity FPGA cards, which are developed at KIT together with other institutes as part of the Serenity consortium.

I work on the integration of the HGCAL scinitllator modules into the Serenity readout chain. This work involves the development of firmware and software for the Serenity boards, as well as commissioning of prototype electronics.