Readout and control electronics for the T2 detector of the TOTEM experiment

The TOTEM experiment, which will measure the total proton-proton cross-section, elastic-scattering and diffractive processes at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), consists of three detectors: the Roman Pots, the T1 detector and the very forward tracking T2 telescope. The readout of the TOTEM detectors uses custom radiation tolerant Integrated Circuits (ICs) as the Front-End ASIC (VFAT) and the Coincidence Chip (CC). ICs developed for CMS are also used in TOTEM as the Communication and Control Unit (CCU) and Detector Control Unit (DCU). In this paper we describe the readout and control system architecture of the T2 detector and the three Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) that we have developed for its implementation: the Horse-Shoe (HS) card, the 11^TH card and the Opto TX (OTX) cards.