New chip captures 1.5 billion particle collisions per second at CERN

Columbia University engineers developed radiation-hardened chips for CERN's Large Hadron Collider upgrade, capable of processing 1.5 billion particle collisions per second. These analog-to-digital converters withstand intense radiation, converting electrical signals to digital data. The team's resilient design can endure harsh conditions for over a decade. Two chips serve different functions: the installed "trigger ADC" filters collisions, while the new "data acquisition ADC" will precisely digitize selected signals for detailed studies of phenomena like the Higgs boson.