The LHCb front-end electronics system: Status and future developments

The LHCb detector and its electronics architecture are optimized for the measurement of b-physics at LHC. A complete electronics system for the first phase of LHCb has been produced and installed, and this paper presents the architecture and some examples of its implementation. Research and development are already starting towards a proposed LHCb upgrade and the second half of the paper describes the new electronics architecture and some of the technical challenges it presents.