  A new Geiger mode avalanche photodiode, the Micro Pixel Photon Counter
(MPPC), was recently released by Hamamatsu. It has a high photo-detection
efficiency in the 420 nm spectral region. This product can represent an elegant
candidate for the design of a high granularity scintillator based hadron
calorimeter for the International Linear Collider. In fact, the direct readout
of the blue scintillation photons with a MPPC is a feasible techological
solution. The readout of a plastic scintillator by a MPPC, both mediated by the
traditional wavelength shifting fiber, and directly coupled, has been
systematically studied.
