PETonCHIP: architecture of a on-chip high-resolution, fully digital positron emission tomography scanner for small Animal Imaging

Small animal PET systems based on a reduced number of rotating planar detectors have advantages in terms of cost/performance for high resolution imaging. The huge integration capability of current semiconductor technologies has favoured miniaturization and popularized the concept of system on a chip. Following this trend, this work attempts to integrate in a single chip the acquisition electronics and coincidence unit of a fully digital four-head PET scanner. The proof of concept is based on commercially available industrial modules, including a FPGA- based high speed acquisition board combined with a rackable computer, both in 6U cPCI form. The four acquisition digital blocks, coincidence logic and communication interface take up close to 30% of the available resources of the FPGA, providing margin for improvement in the system under development.