Hybrid

The hybrids comprise VA1 IC's and a small number ($\sim 25$) of passive surface-mount (SM) components mounted on thermally conductive aluminum-nitride ceramic substrates. The inputs of VA1s are wire-bonded to the strips of DSSDs. The passive components are used for bypassing, calibration, bias adjustment, and clock termination. Connections to the external system were made via ``nano-strip'' connectors, which were selected to accommodate space restrictions (they require only 1.3 mm of vertical clearance). The vendor of these connectors [20] also provides matching ribbon-cable versions that are used to carry the connections to the ABC cards.