Design and Fabrication of a Highly Integrated Silicon Detector for the STAR Experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory

We present the design of a detector used as a particle tracking device in the STAR experiment at the RHIC collider of Brookhaven National Laboratories. The "stave," 24 of which make up the completed detector, is a highly mechanically integrated design comprised of 6 custom silicon sensors mounted on a Kapton substrate. 4608 wire bonds connect these sensors to 36 analog front-end chips which are mounted on the same substrate. Power and signal connectivity from the hybrid to the front-end chips is provided by wire bonds. The entire circuit is mounted on a carbon fiber base co-cured to the Kapton substrate. We present the unique design challenges for this detector and some novel techniques for overcoming them.