Wideband (500 MHz) 16 bit dynamic range current mode input stage for photodetector readout

Author

Gascon, D. ; Sanuy, A. ; Paredes, J.M. ; Ribo, M. ; Sieiro, J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of ECM & the ICC, Univ. of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

fYear

2011

fDate

23-29 Oct. 2011

Firstpage

750

Lastpage

757

Abstract

A low noise wideband current mode circuit with 16 bit dynamic range (DR) is presented. It has been designed as input stage of a transimpedance preamplifier for the readout of the cameras of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project. A novel current division scheme at the very front end part of circuit is used to split the input current in two or more scaled output currents which are connected to independent current mirrors. The mirror of the high gain path comprises a dedicated saturation control circuit needed to assure an accurate current division. Two ASIC prototypes have been designed in AMS SiGe BiCMOS 0.35um technology. Measurement results are presented: BW of 500 MHz, DR of 16 bits, input referred ENC below 4000 electrons and relative linearity error below 2%. The current mode circuit can be operated at 3.3 V and lower, with low power consumption (<;10 mW).

Keywords

nuclear electronics; photodetectors; readout electronics; semiconductor counters; AMS SiGe BiCMOS technology; ASIC prototypes; CTA project; Cherenkov Telescope Array; accurate current division; bandwidth 500 MHz; current division scheme; current mirror; current mode circuit; dynamic range current mode input stage; frequency 500 MHz; high gain path; input current; output currents; photodetector readout; relative linearity error; saturation control circuit; size 0.35 mum; transimpedance preamplifier input stage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), 2011 IEEE

Conference_Location

Valencia

ISSN

1082-3654

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0118-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2011.6154096

Filename

6154096