Development of a 1 GS/s high-resolution sampling ADC system

Today, many experiments in high energy physics have to handle data rates of several MHz per readout channel to reach statistical significance for the measured quantities. In addition, these experiments frequently have to deal with short analog pulses of a few nanoseconds length which may cover large dynamic ranges and which require amplitude as well as time measurements with highest accuracy. For applications of this kind fast transient recorders with very high resolution and deep on-board memory are the first choice. We have built a 16-channel 12- or 14-bit single unit VME64x/VXS sampling ADC module which may sample at rates up to 1 GS/s. Fast algorithms have been developed and successfully tested on scintillating counter detectors to implement pulse shape discrimination, constant fraction timing and gated integration.