https://spectrum.ieee.org/lhc-radiation-chip [ ] IEEE.orgIEEE Xplore Digital LibraryIEEE StandardsMore Sites Sign InJoin IEEE Large Hardon Collider Poised to Receive Major Tech Upgrade Share FOR THE TECHNOLOGY INSIDER Search: [ ] Explore by topic AerospaceAIBiomedicalClimate TechComputingConsumer ElectronicsEnergy History of TechnologyRoboticsSemiconductorsTelecommunications Transportation IEEE Spectrum FOR THE TECHNOLOGY INSIDER Topics AerospaceAIBiomedicalClimate TechComputingConsumer ElectronicsEnergy History of TechnologyRoboticsSemiconductorsTelecommunications Transportation Sections FeaturesNewsOpinionCareersDIYEngineering Resources More NewslettersSpecial ReportsCollectionsExplainersTop Programming LanguagesRobots Guide /IEEE Job Site / For IEEE Members Current IssueMagazine ArchiveThe InstituteThe Institute Archive For IEEE Members Current IssueMagazine ArchiveThe InstituteThe Institute Archive IEEE Spectrum About UsContact UsReprints & Permissions /Advertising / Follow IEEE Spectrum Support IEEE Spectrum IEEE Spectrum is the flagship publication of the IEEE -- the world's largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences. Our articles, podcasts, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science. Join IEEE Subscribe About IEEEContact & SupportAccessibilityNondiscrimination PolicyTerms IEEE Privacy PolicyCookie PreferencesAd Privacy Options (c) Copyright 2025 IEEE -- All rights reserved. A public charity, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account Saving articles to read later requires an IEEE Spectrum account The Institute content is only available for members Downloading full PDF issues is exclusive for IEEE Members Downloading this e-book is exclusive for IEEE Members Access to Spectrum 's Digital Edition is exclusive for IEEE Members Following topics is a feature exclusive for IEEE Members Adding your response to an article requires an IEEE Spectrum account Create an account to access more content and features on IEEE Spectrum , including the ability to save articles to read later, download Spectrum Collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. For more exclusive content and features, consider Joining IEEE . Join the world's largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of Spectrum's articles, archives, PDF downloads, and other benefits. Learn more about IEEE - Join the world's largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of IEEE Spectrum's articles, archives, PDF downloads, and other benefits. Learn more about IEEE - CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN JOIN IEEESIGN IN Close Access Thousands of Articles -- Completely Free Create an account and get exclusive content and features: Save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders -- all free! For full access and benefits, join IEEE as a paying member. CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN ComputingNewsJournal Watch Large Hardon Collider Poised to Receive Major Tech Upgrade New chip will allow a observation of 1.5 billion collisions per second Michelle Hampson 9h 3 min read Large Hardon Collider Poised to Receive Major Tech Upgrade The new chip designed by Xu et al. is able to withstand the harsh conditions of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), while accurately converting large quantities of data of high-speed particle collisions. Rui Xu This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. Deep in the belly of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), about 400 million particle collisions are happening in a single second. But as the LHC undergoes upgrades and becomes the High Luminosity-LHC, the number of collisions will increase to an astounding ~1.5 billion collisions or more per second. Capturing all these events via detectors and analyzing the staggering amount of data created from each experiment is no easy feat. Fortunately, a team of scientists have been working for years to create a chip that is capable of digitally examining all 1.5 billion of these collisions in the blink of an eye. Their new chip is described in a study published May 28 in IEEE Open Journal of the Solid-State Circuits Society. The large hadron collider's hefty computing requirements The LHC, a massive underground facility straddling the border of France and Switzerland, has been smashing particles together since 2008, revealing critical insights into the fundamental laws of physics. However, the system needs a break about every decade to undergo maintenance and technical upgrades. In anticipation of these upgrades, researchers at Columbia University, including Peter Kinget in the electrical engineering department, have been designing two specialized chips with collaborators at the University of Texas, Austin. Both chips are designed for the LHC's ATLAS detector, which investigates a wide range of physics phenomena, from the Higgs boson to extra dimensions and particles that could make up dark matter. The massive detector--at 46 meters long and 25 m high--is lined with tens of thousands of specialized chips to record collision events. The first chip designed by Kinget and his colleagues is called a "trigger" analog-to-digital converter (ADC) chip. It's helpful for sifting through the immense amounts of data--roughly 60 petabytes of raw data--created upon particle collisions. Kinget says the ATLAS detector is like a giant 3D camera taking pictures at a very, very high rate. Meanwhile, the trigger system is quickly screening these 'pictures,' searching for events that may be useful for further analysis. The trigger system tells the detector to disregard the data that is not of interest, while saving the data of interest. The finalized trigger ADC was incorporated into the ATLAS detector during the last shutdown ending in 2022. More recently, they finished designing and testing a second, higher resolution ADC that reads out the signals from the detector and converts it to digital data for analysis. The challenge, however, is that the ADC must be able to cope with the extreme amount of radiation that's created upon particle collisions. "This environment around this beam is one of the most intense environments you can imagine," says Kinget. "As a result... very intense radiation is being generated." Rui Xu, a PhD student in Kinget's lab who helped design the second, ADC chip, says the level of radiation the chip undergoes is similar to what a satellite would experience after eight years in high orbit around Earth. Designing a radiation-proof chip Unfortunately, this intense radiation can hinder the chip's ability to record data accurately. Digital data is conveyed through a series of ones and zeroes. But as the ADC converts electrical signals into this digital format, upset caused by radiation could cause a 'one' to be recorded as a 'zero,' or vice versa, essentially corrupting the data. Therefore, the researchers created their ADC using a technique that provides a triple-check measure to ensure that the digital data has been converted and stored correctly. The chances that the data would be corrupted three times is very unlikely, Kinget points out. After designing their ADC, the researchers subjected it to radiation using medical equipment at a hospital in Boston to evaluate how it performs under intense radiation and estimate how it would perform in the LHC. The results suggest the chip is up to the task, and it is now being readied for integration and installation in the next LHC upgrade scheduled to start in 2026. The stakes are high for the chips to work. As Kinget notes, hardware upgrades only come every decade, so there's a lot of pressure on engineers and scientists to have their technology working flawlessly at the time of installation. But the payoff will be high if the chip performs well--allowing more than a billion collisions per second to be detected. Kinget emphasizes that this research has been the result of a great deal of collaboration, not just with experts within Columbia University, such as physicists John Parsons and Gustaaf Brooijmans, but also physicist Tim Andeen and electrical engineer Nan Sun at the University of Texas, Austin and many teams from around the world that have made the LHC work possible. As of 2022, more than 5,500 scientists across 42 countries have contributed to ATLAS alone. "It's been nice for us to be part of that," says Kinget. From Your Site Articles * Engineers Unveil Particle Accelerator on a Chip > * Higgs Boson Unmasked by World's Biggest Test Instruments > Related Articles Around the Web * Radiation Protection at the Large Hadron Collider: Problematics ... > * Columbia Engineers Develop Radiation-Hardened Chips for the ... > large hadron colliderchipsparticle acceleratorjournal watch {"imageShortcodeIds":[]} Michelle Hampson Michelle Hampson is a freelance writer based in Halifax. She frequently contributes to Spectrum's Journal Watch coverage, which highlights newsworthy studies published in IEEE journals. The Conversation (0) A flat white surface with a translucent cylinder in the center, surrounded by rows of golden squares and circles. AINewsBiomedicalComputing Biochips Promise Energy Savings in AI 09 Aug 2025 4 min read Robotic dog running in an illuminated arched hallway at night and smashing through a pane of glass. RoboticsNewsHumanoid Robots Video Friday: Unitree's New Robot Dog Goes Exploring 08 Aug 2025 2 min read An image of a phone screen showing the ChatGPT interface with the words "Introducing GPT-5" and an explanation of the ways in which OpenAI's latest LLM has improved. AINews OpenAI Releases GPT-5 With Enhanced Reasoning Powers 07 Aug 2025 5 min read Related Stories RoboticsNewsJournal Watch Fear-Driven Robots Are Better Navigators TelecommunicationsNewsJournal Watch Future Wireless Comms Could Process Data in Midair RoboticsNewsClimate TechJournal Watch Robotic Arm "Feels" Using Sound