Data acquisition system for the readout of SiPM matrix with the VATA64HDR16 front-end ASIC

The silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) is nowadays an attractive technology in various fields of physics including medical imaging applications. The use of detectors with a large sensitive area has created the necessity to handle detectors with many channels. This has led to the development of data acquisition system for the read-out in parallel of four SiPM matrices with 16 pixels each. The matrices are coupled to a scintillator crystal and the front-end of the system is based on the VATA64HDR16 application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) from Gamma Medica - Ideas. The first test and characterization results and the planned future development activities are described.