An 8×8 Row-Column Summing Readout Electronics for Preclinical Positron Emission Tomography Scanners

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Nuclear Physics
• Electronics Engineering

Background:

• Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners require high resolution for improved diagnostic accuracy.
• Reducing the number of electronic channels in PET detectors is crucial for achieving higher spatial resolution.
• Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are increasingly used in PET detectors due to their sensitivity and compact size.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a row/column summing readout electronics system for an 8x8 silicon photomultiplier array.
• To demonstrate a significant reduction in electronic channels for advanced PET scanner designs.
• To evaluate the energy and timing resolution performance of the developed readout electronics.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a row/column summing circuit using a degenerated common source topology for increased fan-in.
• Retrieval of timing signals from a common anode for efficient data acquisition.
• Utilizing a single fast-sampling analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for timing and slower ADCs for spatial channels.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a substantial reduction in the number of required electronic channels for an 8x8 SiPM array.
• Achieved a Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) energy resolution of 17.8% (with multiplexing) and 18.3% (without multiplexing) for one row summation.
• Measured a timing resolution of 2.9ns FWHM.

Conclusions:

• The developed row/column summing readout electronics effectively reduce channel count, enabling higher resolution PET scanners.
• The system achieves promising energy and timing resolution, suitable for advanced medical imaging applications.
• The design facilitates the use of efficient analog-to-digital converter configurations for both timing and spatial data acquisition.