A high speed, high gain amplifier system has been designed for silicon strip detectors. The amplifier has been designed using a semicustom bipolar linear array. This paper focuses on a practical integration of this amplifier into a working system. To maximize board density and reduce cost a new, relatively inexpensive custom chip carrier was designed. The design approach could be useful for other custom or semicustom chip designs. Insight into the design of a 128 channel preamplifier circuit board for low noise and low crosstalk using the new carrier is presented. High channel density presents challenges in cabling. A relatively new high density cable with mass termination capability was used for transmitting signals from the preamp to the discriminator boards. As a part of the overall design, the approach taken for shielding of the detector, preamplifier cards, and output cables is discussed. Copyright © 1990 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
