Welcome to the KU High Energy Physics
Layer 0 Silicon Website!

KU has been working on the testing of the sensitive electronic components of the D0 upgrade. We begin with an unstuffed (without surface mount components) circuit based on Beryllia ceramic substrates that is called a hybrid. We test the hybrid for continuity and shorts, and then ship it off to be stuffed with resistors and capacitors. The stuffed hybrids are returned to us where further testing is done. Once again we test for the correct resistance between the pads before shipping it off for the SVX4 chip mount.

The SVX4 chip is the most recent version of the SVX chip series, and is used to interpret the voltages left by particles on a silicon strip attached to the hybrid. We do testing on the SVX4 chip to make sure it correctly mounted on the hybrid. The SVX4 chip is mounted with extremely small wire bonds which we repair if found to be damaged. We also test the functionality of each chip through a logic analyzer and an interface card. If the fully stuffed and mounted hybrids check out to be functional we ship them to Fermilab.