A particle detector fully-programmable interface circuit for satellite applications

In this paper we propose a fully integrated analog acquisition channel for the new generation of γ-ray detectors. The channel does not include a charge sensitive amplifier (CSA), because the CSA itself is mounted on the detector. This approach relaxes significantly the noise specifications of the channel, but requires the programmability of the most important parameters of the circuit (gain, shaping time, threshold, polarity, pole-zero cancellation) to allow the same analog channel to be connected to many types of detector/CSA pairs. The channel includes also a 10 bit A/D converter and hence provides digital output. The programming of the parameters is performed digitally. The chip, fabricated using a CMOS 0.8 μm technology, consumes 30 mW from a 5 V power supply.