A front-end readout Detector Board for the OpenPET electronics system

Journal Article · Wed Aug 12 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Journal of Instrumentation

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/10/08/t08002· OSTI ID:1257640

Choong, W. -S. ^[1]; Abu-Nimeh, F. ^[1]; Moses, W. W. ^[1]; Peng, Q. ^[1]; Vu, C. Q. ^[1]; Wu, J. -Y. ^[2]

---

1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)

Here, we present a 16-channel front-end readout board for the OpenPET electronics system. A major task in developing a nuclear medical imaging system, such as a positron emission computed tomograph (PET) or a single-photon emission computed tomograph (SPECT), is the electronics system. While there are a wide variety of detector and camera design concepts, the relatively simple nature of the acquired data allows for a common set of electronics requirements that can be met by a flexible, scalable, and high-performance OpenPET electronics system. The analog signals from the different types of detectors used in medical imaging share similar characteristics, which allows for a common analog signal processing. The OpenPET electronics processes the analog signals with Detector Boards. Here we report on the development of a 16-channel Detector Board. Each signal is digitized by a continuously sampled analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which is processed by a field programmable gate array (FPGA) to extract pulse height information. A leading edge discriminator creates a timing edge that is "time stamped" by a time-to-digital converter (TDC) implemented inside the FPGA. In conclusion, this digital information from each channel is sent to an FPGA that services 16 analog channels, and then information from multiple channels is processed by this FPGA to perform logic for crystal lookup, DOI calculation, calibration, etc.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH112; R01EB01610
• OSTI ID: 1257640
• Journal Information: Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 10, Issue 08; ISSN 1748-0221
• Publisher: Institute of Physics (IOP)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
analog-to-digital converter
field programmable gate array
positron emission computed tomography
time-of-flight
time-to-digital converter