A comprehensive quality-assurance testing procedure has been developed to ensure the reliability of transformer-coupled buck-converter boards (“Bricks”) used in the ATLAS hadronic Tile
Calorimeter (TileCal). With the impending Phase-II upgrades of the TileCal, which will contribute to the success of the forthcoming High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider, ensuring the
reliability of the Bricks in the TileCal’s Low Voltage Power Supply (LVPS) system is essential.
There are 256 LVPS Boxes within the TileCal, each equipped with eight Bricks that step down 200
V DC power received from the off-detector electronics to the voltage required by the on-detector
front-end electronics. As part of the Phase-II upgrades in South Africa, our team plays a significant
role in production by manufacturing half of the required Bricks. Access to the Bricks is limited to
once per year during the Year-End Technical Stops due to their location within the inner barrel of
the ATLAS detector. Consequently, if a Brick fails, it may remain offline for up to one year, during
which the front-end electronics it powers will also be non-operational. Establishing a Burn-in test
station is essential for subjecting LVPS Bricks to accelerated aging, thereby stimulating potential
failure mechanisms and screening out defective units that could compromise detector performance.
By ensuring the reliability of the final population of Bricks installed, we minimize instances of
the front-end electronics being offline, thus improving detector performance and data integrity.