Upgrades of the ALICE TPC Front-End Electronics for Long Shutdown 1 and 2
This paper presents the front-end electronics upgrades of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber detector for the coming years, with a focus on the upgrades for Long Shutdown 2. The Large Hadron Collider is currently in Long Shutdown 1 following a successful first run, and upgrades of the detectors are underway to support the higher particle interaction rates planned for the next run. For the Time Projection Chamber, the increase in data due to the higher interaction rate and higher energy will cause a bottleneck in the Readout Control Unit and a new board is in development which increases the data-link speed to the back-end. Another more general upgrade of the ALICE experiment is planned for Long Shutdown 2, foreseen to start in 2018. In this case the goal is to cope with an even higher interaction rate of 50 kHz for Pb-Pb collisions. The present Multi Wire Proportional Chambers of the Time Projection Chamber will then be replaced by Gas Electron Multiplier technology. At the same time, the front-end electronics and readout system will also be replaced.