The front end readout of the focal plane detector (FPD) of KATRIN

The design considerations, manufacturing and first tests of the front end readout for the KATRIN Focal plane detector are presented. The main focus is put to the charge-sensitive preamplifiers, which are built as modules with 6 or 7 channels. The prototype results of the charge-sensitive preamplifier-modules gained by charge injection with a test pulser show rise-times of 70 ns, a resulting bandwidths of approx. 5 MHz, a large dynamic input energy ranges from keV up to several MeV and an equivalent noise contribution of approximately 800 eV (FWHM) at room-temperature.