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arXiv · 2610.41916

Challenges in the verification of MOSAIX ASIC for ALICE ITS3

Simone Scarfi·Matteo Lupi·Adithya Pulli
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Abstract

The MOSAIX is a wafer-scale, full-functionality prototype ASIC for the ALICE Inner Tracking System (ITS3) upgrade, implemented in $65\,\text{nm}$ stitching technology. It integrates 144 independently powered pixel matrices, eight $10\,\text{Gb/s}$ serializers, and on-chip data and power distribution, making full-chip verification highly resource-intensive (over $80\,\text{GB}$ of memory and 192,000 tests). Verification also targets a sophisticated power-up sequence and radiation conditions of $10^{6}$\ particles $s^{-1} cm^{-2}$ and $4\,\text{kGy}$ TID. This work presents a UVM-based verification strategy that identified 260 design errors and summarizes key lessons from ASIC sign-off.

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Simone Scarfi, Matteo Lupi, Adithya Pulli. 2026-10-30. Challenges in the verification of MOSAIX ASIC for ALICE ITS3. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.41916

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