A. Baumbaugh, J. E. Elias, S. Hansen, S. Los, R. Tschirhart
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to be submitted
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The charge integrator and encoder ASIC (QIE) developed at Fermilab has been coupled with a current-mode preamplifier in a demonstrator project for readout of the CMS hadron calorimeter (HCAL) photodetectors.  The QIE provides eight non-overlapping ranges and is pipelined for deadtimeless operation, but does not meet the sensitivity and noise floor performance requirements for HCAL.  A preamplifier was designed to provide 20 times higher sensitivity and a factor of 5 improvement in noise in accordance with performance requirements.  Recent test results are reported including test beam exposures with a calorimeter prototype.
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