Electronics calibration board for the ATLAS liquid argon calorimeters

To calibrate the energy response of the ATLAS liquid argon calorimeter, an electronics calibration board has been designed; it delivers a signal whose shape is close to the calorimeter ionization current signal with amplitude up to 100 mA in 50 Ω with 16 bit dynamic range. The amplitude of this signal is designed to be uniform over all calorimeters channels, stable in time and with an integral linearity much better that the electronics readout. The various R&D phases and most of the difficulties met are discussed and illustrated by many measurements. The custom design circuits are described and the layout of the ATLAS calibration board presented. The procedure used to qualify the boards is explained and the performance obtained illustrated: a dynamic range up to 3 TeV in three energy scales with an integral linearity better than 0.1% in each of them, a response uniformity better than 0.2% and a stability better than 0.1%. The performance of the board is well within the ATLAS requirements. Finally, in situ measurements done on the ATLAS calorimeter are shown to validate these performances.