A Novel data-sparsification method for radiation detector readout ASICs

A novel data-sparsification method for multi-channel radiation detector readout ASICs is proposed. Based on the self-triggering approach, the scheme operates as follows: when one channel is being read out, the trigger signal from other channels is delayed one or more clock cycles and then processed. In this way, the dead time, during which the circuit fails to respond to the input, is reduced and so is the error rate. A 16-channel readout ASIC has been designed in a 0.5um DPTM CMOS technology. The feasibility of this novel sparse readout method is verified by simulation. Theory analysis and calculation show that the error rate is approximately 2.5%, and is reduced by about 37% compared with the conventional scanning scheme, assuming a 16-channel system with an event rate of 100K/s per channel.