High Luminosities planned at colliders of the next decades pose very severe requirements on vertex detector systems in terms of space resolution (tens of μm), radiation hardness (some 1016 1 MeV neq cm-2 and some Grad) and data throughput (Tbit/s). Expected event pile-up (of the order of 100) introduces the need to add high resolution time measurements (100 ps) already at the single pixel level. This demand pushes towards a new concept of vertex detector system, where all these features must operate at the same time. Time available to finalizing such a system is not that long with respect to the challenge to be fronted and overcome: about 10 years to be ready for data taking.

Nevertheless, promising suitable solutions exist in sensor and microelectronics technologies and very interesting ideas are being discussed concerning fast tracking algorithms and their implementation. The TIMESPOT strategy consists in facing this experimental challenge at system level. We have organized a research team gathering together state-of-the-art knowledges from different experts, different disciplines and different projects, in such a way to finalize existing technologies in the direction of an innovative tracking apparatus. 10 INFN research units and roughly 20 full time equivalent physicists/engineers are involved. They come from, or still participate to, the following INFN-funded experiments: ATLAS, CMS, CT-PPS, LHCb, CHIPX65, Scalthech28, 3Dose, UFSD, NA62.

This organic approach is a key point of our project. Our experience as experimentalists is that high performance is only possible by optimizing the details of a system as a whole, in particular considering the interplay of detector and readout electronics. Bearing in mind this idea, we organized our project in six Work Packages (WP). WP1 and WP2 are dedicated to sensor design and characterization (silicon and diamond sensors respectively). Their product will be a rad-hard device with optimized timing performance. WP3 is dedicated to front-end design. Its product will be a high resolution time and space read-out device. WP4 and WP5 are dedicated to the implementation of high speed, high density read-out boards, capable of real-time reconstruction of tracks. Last but not least, WP6 will take care of realizing a proto-tracker system, a so-called “Timespotter”, which integrates the individual results of the previous WP. This will consist of a small tracking telescope having at least 4 fully equipped tracking layers, high speed data-taking and real-time processing. Besides its deliverables, the expected final results of TIMESPOT are: favour the synergy among different INFN activities and competences; provide a clear, effective and viable solution for the technical challenge of future colliders; help INFN to maintain and enforce its leading role in the development of frontier detectors at international level.