A comparative study of the time performance between NINO and FlexToT ASICs

Sarasola, I.; Nemallapudi, Mythra Varun; Sánchez, David; Rato, P.; Gascón, D.; Auffray, E.; Marín, J.; Gundacker, S.

doi:10.1088/1748-0221/12/04/p04016

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…12 reports the histogram of the timing distribution of the coincidences, with three different source positions. The average FWHM is 116 ps, similar results have been obtained in [18] (123 ps FWHM, same experimental setup) and in [19], but in this case the TDC is a very low-cost and simple to use device.…”

Section: Iif Experimental Validationsupporting

confidence: 83%

Auto-Calibrating TDC for a SoC-FPGA Data Acquisition System

Carra

Bertazzoni

Bisogni

et al. 2017

2017 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC)

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In this work, an FPGA-based plain delay line TDC is presented, together with a theoretical model on its timing properties. The TDC features an automated calibration system implemented in the on-chip processor of a SoC-FPGA, uses a low amount of FPGA resources and is therefore suitable for applications requiring a high number of channels such as Time-of-Flight Positron Emission Tomography. We first investigated the importance of calibration and validated the theoretical model on the TDC timing properties. Finally, the device has been embodied into a two channel Positron Emission Tomography acquisition system and tested. We found the calibration essential to obtain a good time resolution (38 ps FWHM in comparison with a 78 ps FWHM obtained with the uncalibrated device). The model we developed is able to predict the TDC timing properties. They are shown to be related to the fundamental parameters of the used FPGA technology. In particular, the best achievable time resolution of this specific architecture (plain tapped delay line on FPGA) is set to about 30 ps by the sum of the setup and hold times of the registers in the FPGA. The timing resolution of the twochannel setup is about 118 ps. Index Terms-FPGA, positron emission tomography, scintillators, time-of-flight, time-to-digital converters. I. INTRODUCTION IGH resolution instruments for measuring temporal intervals find various applications both in the industry and in research. Examples are optical spectroscopy, mass Manuscript received April 4, 2018. The research leading to these results has received partial funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 602621-Trimage.

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Section: Iif Experimental Validationsupporting

confidence: 83%

Auto-Calibrating TDC for a SoC-FPGA Data Acquisition System

Carra

Bertazzoni

Bisogni

et al. 2017

2017 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC)

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“…An interesting concept is to use a balun tranformer to adapt the balanced SiPM signal to the unbalanced input of the amplifier(Cates et al 2018) which gives the additional advantage of suppressing common ground noise effectively, similar to a differential readout of the SiPM, e.g. as in the PETA chip or NINO ASIC(Anghinolfi et al 2004).Examples of ASICS using a current readout approach are the NINO ASIC(Powolny et al 2011, Anghinolfi et al 2004, STiC3(Stankova et al 2015), FlexTOT(Comerma et al 2013, Sarasola et al 2017 and TOFPET2(Francesco et al 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The silicon photomultiplier: fundamentals and applications of a modern solid-state photon detector

2020

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The silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) is an established device of choice for a variety of applications, e.g. in time of flight positron emission tomography (TOF-PET), lifetime fluorescence spectroscopy, distance measurements in LIDAR applications, astrophysics, quantum-cryptography and related applications as well as in high energy physics (HEP).To fully utilize the exceptional performances of the SiPM, in particular its sensitivity down to single photon detection, the dynamic range and its intrinsically fast timing properties, a qualitative description and understanding of the main SiPM parameters and properties is necessary. These analyses consider the structure and the electrical model of a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) and the integration in an array of SPADs, i.e. the SiPM. The discussion will include the front-end readout and the comparison between analog-SiPMs, where the array of SPADs is connected in parallel, and the digital SiPM, where each SPAD is read out and digitized by its own electronic channel.For several applications a further complete phenomenological view on SiPMs is necessary, defining several SiPM intrinsic parameters, i.e. gain fluctuation, afterpulsing, excess noise, dark count rate, prompt and delayed optical crosstalk, single photon time resolution (SPTR), photon detection effieciency (PDE) etc. These qualities of SiPMs influence directly and indirectly the time and energy resolution, for example in PET and HEP. This complete overview of all parameters allows one to draw solid conclusions on how best performances can be achieved for the various needs of the different applications.

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“…Data acquisition for PET systems using SiPM-based detectors can be challenging with a need to measure energy and timing from several tens of thousands of individual SiPM channels. Typically this requires the use of a dedicated TOF PET application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips with integrated amplifiers, non-delay line constant fraction discriminators (CFDs), and high precision TDCs [47][48][49][50]. Development of a dedicated ASIC is a costly and time consuming effort, but there are some commercial solutions available that are tailored for TOF PET applications.…”

Section: Tof Pet Detector Design and Data Acquisition Electronicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Update on latest advances in time-of-flight PET

Surti

Karp

2020

Physica Medica

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This paper provides an update on time-of-flight (TOF) PET with a focus on latest hardware developments leading to current commercial PET/CT instruments. We describe advances in scintillator development, new photosensors and associated electronics readout, and detector designs for utilization in complete systems. Next, we introduce the latest commercial PET/CT scanners based on the aforementioned technologies, and discuss the detector design choices made that are relevant to differences in the system performance. Finally, we end with a discussion of the latest performance benchmarks for improved timing in PET detectors, challenges in scaling this performance to a complete system, and the outlook towards achieving a sub-50 ps coincidence timing resolution (CTR) in a PET detector.

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A comparative study of the time performance between NINO and FlexToT ASICs

Cited by 19 publications

References 12 publications

Auto-Calibrating TDC for a SoC-FPGA Data Acquisition System

Auto-Calibrating TDC for a SoC-FPGA Data Acquisition System

The silicon photomultiplier: fundamentals and applications of a modern solid-state photon detector

Update on latest advances in time-of-flight PET

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