Very low mass microcables for the ALICE silicon strip detector

<P>Proposal of abstract for LEB99, Snowmass, Colorado, 20-24 September 1999<P>The ALICE Inner Tracker (ITS) silicon strip layers will use kapton/aluminium microcables (12/14 um thickness) exclusively for all interconnections to and from the front-end chips and hybrids, completely eliminating traditional wirebonding. Benefits are increased robustness and an extra degree of dimensional freedom. Utilising a low-power, low temperature and low-force (10-15 grams) single-point TAB bonding process, aluminium traces are directly bonded through bonding windows in the kapton foil to bond pads on the chips and the hybrid. The same technique is also used to interconnect these microcables to create multi-layer bus structures with "bonded via's". A double-sided strip detector using prototype cables has been installed in the NA57 experiment in 1998.