[Triumf-seminars] TRIUMF Technical Seminar today at 16:00

[TRIUMF Seminars]

Date/Time: Mon 2013-07-15 at 16:00

Location:  Auditorium          

Speaker:   Stefan Ritt (Paul Scherrer Institute)

Title:     Know your Signals: Waveform Digitizing in the Giga-sample Range with Switched Capacitor Arrays

Abstract: Fast waveform digitizing is traditionally done with flash ADCs. These devices however hit their limits in resolution and power consumption when it comes to sampling rates far beyond the Giga-sample per second range (GSPS). An alternative for non-periodic signals are Switched Capacitor Arrays (SCA) that store an analog waveform in a series of capacitors, which are then digitized after a trigger at much lower speed. While these chips have been used for two decades in particle physics, the recent improvements in CMOS technology allows for designs with resolutions of 12 bits, sampling speeds beyond 10 GSPS and power consumptions of a few tens of mW per channel. Putting many channels on a single chip makes it possible to build data acquisition systems with several thousand channels at reasonable costs, space and power requirements. Obtaining the waveforms of particle detectors at high resolution allows excellent timing measurements down to a few pico-seconds, doing particle discrimination and efficient pile-up rejection.

This Talk covers the basic principles of SCAs, gives an overview of currently available chips and introduces advanced waveform processing techniques used in particle physics and gamma-ray astronomy. Experiences from the MEG experiment with 3000 SCA channels are reported. It finishes with an outlook for new chips currently under design and how they can be used in future experiments.

Stimulants available 15 minutes before the talk. This is an IEEE technical seminar.

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General TRIUMF seminar information available at http://www.triumf.ca/home/upcoming-events/about-seminars-lectures