Data Acquisition and Processing Electronics for Positron Computed Tomography

Positron emission computed axial tomography requires very accurate coincidence measurements, with large numbers of detector elements and large data arrays, for good image quality with high signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios. This paper presents the design concepts and system implementation approaches used to attain a system time resolution of 3.8 nsec and 7.6 nsec FWHM and FWTM, respectively, on a system using 66 NaI(Tl) detectors, 3.8cm diameter by 7.6cm long. Additionally, the system response provides a data processing burst rate of >5 MHz and dynamic random count subtraction without additional dead-time losses on a true line-of-response basis.