Front-end electronics with large dynamic range for space-borne cosmic ray experiments

The next generation of space-based or balloon-borne experiments, dedicated to the study of high energy cosmic rays, are designed to identify the primary particle and to record electronically in flight its charge and energy. The large number of readout channels drives the front-end electronics design toward low power devices with the additional requirement of a large dynamic range. This turns out to be mandatory both for charge detectors dedicated to the identification of high-Z nuclei and for calorimeters designed to operate in the multi-TeV range. The development of new front-end electronics designed according to the above requirements will be reported.