DPIX: an assembly of 6400 CdTe detectors for gamma-ray bursts detection with ECLAIRs

The French instrument ECLAIRs, to be part of the French and Chinese SVOM mission for the study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), will detect bursts between 4 and 250 keV. Its detector plane is an assembly of 200 elementary detection modules (XRDPIX) equipped with 32 Schottky CdTe detectors, produced by ACRORAD in Japan. The innovative concept of XRDPIX will enable a 4 keV low-energy threshold to be achieved. After introducing the SVOM payload, the ECLAIRs instrument and its detector plane, this paper presents the results of the performance evaluation of a first set of 500 detectors, and briefly describes the tests foreseen for the first XRDPIX prototypes.