High Speed Multichannel Charge Sensitive Data Acquisition System with Self-Triggered Event Timing.

Area of Science:

• Instrumentation and Measurement
• Particle Physics Detectors
• High-Energy Physics

Background:

• Modern experiments demand simultaneous charge measurement on multiple channels at MHz event rates with high accuracy (100-1000 e- rms).
• Existing data processing schemes using analog peak detection with serial readout are limited by readout speed, hindering high event rate capabilities.
• Advances in analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) offer potential for fully parallel, high-speed data processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel fully parallel, 128-channel charge-sensitive data processing electronics system.
• To demonstrate accurate charge and event timing measurements at high event rates (> MHz).
• To explore applications in high-resolution position-sensitive event counting detectors.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 128-channel, fully parallel data acquisition system.
• Utilizing digital peak detection enhanced by finite impulse response (FIR) filtering.
• Experimental testing to validate charge and timing measurement accuracy.

Main Results:

• Achieved charge measurement accuracy of approximately 1000 e- rms.
• Provided event timing determination with an accuracy of approximately 1 ns Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM).
• System operates without requiring an external trigger.

Conclusions:

• The developed system enables high-speed, accurate charge and timing measurements at multi-MHz event rates.
• This technology can significantly enhance the performance of detectors like microchannel plates with cross-strip readout.
• Enables virtually noiseless detection of particle position (~10 µm FWHM) and timing (~1 ns FWHM) for various particle types.