Laboratory tests and scientific performances of the XAA1.2 front-end chip for space applications

The XAA1.2 chip is a low noise, self-triggered, data-driven and sparse readout ASIC chip with 128 input channels designed as a front-end electronic circuit for silicon-microstrip detectors and manufactured by Ideas ASA (Norway). The XAA1.2 has been selected as the front-end electronic circuit of the SuperAGILE experiment on-board the AGILE satellite mission. This chip underwent to extensive laboratory tests to evaluate its scientific performances. Particularly we have measured the electronic noise and threshold voltage in both configurations stand alone and bonded to a silicon microstrip detector and we have tested the chip thermal stability and radiation damage. In this paper we describe the measurements and we discuss the results.