X-IFU Warm Front End Electronic Demonstrator Model measured performances

The ATHENA space mission will be the next generation X-ray observatory. The X-ray integral field unit (X-IFU) is ATHENA’s cryogenic spectro-imager observing the sky with thousands of superconducting micro-calorimeters. The detectors are based on transition edge sensors (TES) in time-division multiplexing (TDM). A Warm front-end electronic (WFEE) demonstrator model (DM) has been developed for the low noise biasing and readout of X-IFU’s cryogenic detection chain. After extensive testing, it has been delivered to the French space agency (CNES) for integration in the full detection chain DM. The WFEE DM is capable of reading out and biasing 8 TDM channels. Different configurations were chosen for some of the channels in order to find the best performance after testing of the full readout chain DM. Design and measured performances will be presented and discussed.