Application of a specific integrated circuit for readout and analog processing of signals from silicon multiplier arrays

A multichannel integrated circuit intended for readout and analog preprocessing of signals from multielement photodetectors has been designed and evaluated. It is optimized for use with silicon photomultiplier arrays. The chip includes current-signal and voltage-signal processing channels. Except for the front end, all of the channels are identical. Each of them contains a code-controlled current amplifier, an integrator, two digitally controlled variable gain amplifiers, a filter, a peak detector, an output buffer with a level shifter, an amplitude discriminator, two timers, and a control unit. The device is configured and tuned by uploading data via a serial interface. The chip is part of a chipset that also includes a multichannel analog-todigital converter with a buffer memory and voltage reference. This chipset makes it possible to build a fullfeatured multielement photodetector signal-processing system, as well as signal processing systems for multichannel detectors of other types. The integrated circuit is implemented in the 0.35 μm CMOS process. This paper also describes the features of the circuits of the device, analyzes the parameters of several of its basic units, and discusses the test results.