A novel version of the front-end electronics for the CMS Resistive Plate Chambers is described. It is based on a new front-end ASIC, designed and manufactured in the BiCMOS technology by Austria Mikro Systeme. The main improvements with respect to the previous version (Loddo et al., Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Resistive Plate Chambers and related Detectors, Napoli, 15–16 October 1997) [1] concern the input impedance, the threshold uniformity and the timing performance. Simulation and test results will be shown, together with a brief description of the automatic test system for both front-end chip and board.
