A VLSI front-end circuit for microstrip silicon detectors for medical imaging applications

An analog CMOS-Integrated Circuit has been developed as Front-End for a double-sided microstrip silicon detector. The IC processes and discriminates signals in the 5–30 keV energy range. Main features are low noise and precise timing information. Low noise is achieved by optimizing the cascoded integrator with the 8 pF detector capacitance and by using an inherently low noise 1.2 μm CMOS technology. Timing information is provided by a double discriminator architecture. The output of the circuit is a digital pulse. The leading edge is determined by a fixed threshold discriminator, while the trailing edge is provided by a zero crossing discriminator. In this paper we first describe the architecture of the Front-End chip. We then present the performance of the chip prototype in terms of noise, minimum discrimination threshold and time resolution.