A novel ASIC for readout electronics in semiconductor γ-ray detection

A low-power low-noise multichannel integrated circuit is implemented in 1.2 μm CMOS technology. This circuit is designed for space γ-ray spectrometer using arrays of CdTe radiation detectors in the 20–750 keV range. The space environment needs rad-tolerant specifications for the technology like 20 krad of total integrated dose and consumption limited to 2 mW/channel. Each channel includes a low-noise charge-sensitive preamplifier, fitted band-pass filters, peak amplitude and rise-time measurements; these enable a remote rise-time corrected γ-ray energy spectral analysis. The circuit includes an associated logic block, dedicated to the internal timing, functional organization, external communication and data transfer.