An Associative Memory Chip for the Trigger System of the ATLAS Experiment

Abstract

The AM06 is the 6 th version of a large associative memory chip designed in 65 nm CMOS technology. The AM06 operates as a highly parallel ASIC processor for pattern recognition in the ATLAS experiment at CERN. It is the core of the Fast TracKer electronic system, which is tailored for on-line track finding in the trigger system of the ATLAS experiment. The Fast TracKer system is able to process events up to 100 kHz in real time. The AM06 is a complex chip, and it has been designed combining full-custom memory arrays, standard logic cells and IP blocks. It contains memory banks that store data organized in 18 bit words; a group of 8 words is called a pattern. It accepts as input 16-bit words at a rate of 100 MHz, which are serialized with an 8b/10b encoding, thus giving a serial data rate equal to 2 Gbit/s. The chip silicon area is 168 mm 2 ; it contains 421 millions of transistors and it stores 2 17 patterns. Moreover, the associative memory is suitable also for other interdisciplinary applications (i.e., general purpose image filtering and analysis). In the near future we plan to design a more powerful and flexible chip in 28 nm CMOS technology.