Title :
A CMOS 0.13µm low power front-end for GEM detectors
Author :
Costantini, A. ; Pezzotta, A. ; Baschirotto, A. ; De Matteis, M. ; D´Amico, S. ; Murtas, F. ; Gorini, G.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Phys. G. Occhialini, Univ. of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Abstract :
A low power front-end for GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) detectors has been developed in 0.13μm CMOS node. The front-end sensitivity is 0.5mV/fC which remains almost unchanged up to a 15 pF detector parasitic capacitance. The input dynamic charge range varies from 30fC to 1pC including only a single (negative) polarity charge. The front-end provides as output signal two different time-domain square-wave signals. The first one indicates the charge detection event and the second one the amount of charge (providing a time-domain impulse, whose duty-cycle is proportional to the effective charge read by the front-end). Proper automatic calibration circuits are then implemented in order to optimize the front-end performance in case of CMOS process and temperature variations. The power consumption is 3.8mW, against 12mW in the existing market solutions [9]. A feed-forward opamp architecture has been exploited in analog part of read-out channel, in order to improve speed and time-response slope.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; electron detection; electron multiplier detectors; low-power electronics; power consumption; CMOS low power front-end; CMOS node; CMOS process; GEM detectors; automatic calibration circuits; charge detection event; detector parasitic capacitance; feed-forward opamp architecture; front-end performance; front-end sensitivity; gas electron multiplier detectors; input dynamic charge range; market solutions; negative polarity charge; output signal; power 12 mW; power 3.8 mW; power consumption; read-out channel; single polarity charge; size 0.13 mum; speed slope; temperature variations; time-domain impulse; time-domain square-wave signals; time-response slope; whose duty-cycle; CMOS integrated circuits; CMOS technology; Calibration; Circuit stability; Delay; Detectors; Preamplifiers;
Conference_Titel :
Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS), 2012 19th IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Seville
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-1261-5
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4673-1259-2
DOI :
10.1109/ICECS.2012.6463768
