Serial powering of silicon sensors

Serial powering is a technique to provide power to a number of serially chained detector modules. It is an alternative option to independent powering that is particularly attractive when the number of modules is high, as in large-scale silicon tracking detectors for particle physics. It uses a single power cable and a constant current source. On each module power is derived using local shunt regulators. Design aspects of local shunt regulators and system aspects of serial powering will be discussed. Test results and measurements obtained with a silicon strip supermodule will be presented. Specifications of radiation- hard custom serial powering circuitry will be discussed.