Performance Assessment of bPOL12V Power Modules for the Next LHCb-RICH Front-end Electronics

Abstract The electronics readout chain of the LHCb-RICH sub-detectors will be redesigned during the LS3 to improve its PID efficiency as well as to enhance background reduction. Novel ASIC technologies are planned to be employed to enable precise time-tagging of the incoming Cherenkov photons. The new design relies on bPOL12V-based power modules as local power supplies for the electronics chain. This paper presents the testing system and the validation strategy, that were put together to assess the performance and reliability of bPOL12V-based power modules in LHCb-RICH scenarios. We performed qualitative measurements like: efficiency, output voltage stability, transient response, thermal studies, ripple measurements etc. For our application, we identified working conditions with best compromise between efficiency, thermal dissipation and load. An upgraded version of the testing system presented in this paper will be used to mass-test about 2500 power modules that are required to populate all the electronics chains for the next LHCb-RICH upgrade for LS3 Enhancement program.