An Asic for High-Speed and High-Resolution Decoding of Multi-Anode Microchannel Array Detectors

Computer Science – Performance

Scientific paper

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Microchannel Plate, Phonon Events

Scientific paper

The Multi-Anode Microchannel Array (MAMA) is a microchannel plate-based photon-counting detector with applications in ground-based and space-based astronomy. The detector requires a digital decoder to determine the position of each photon event, and the decoding algorithm that associates a given event with the appropriate pixel is determined by the geometry of the detector's anode array. An Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) version of a MAMA decoder, suitable for both ground-based and space-based applications, has been designed, fabricated and tested successfully. The design was fabricated in commercial 1.5 micron CMOS gate array technology, and the chip is smaller, faster, incorporates more options and uses less power than comparable discrete component decoders. The chip has performed well in preliminary radiation exposure tests and incorporates a new high resolution decoding algorithm that has the potential to double the detector's spatial resolution. The performance of a new high resolution algorithm has been demonstrated. The algorithm does not degrade the pulse-pair resolution of the detector; moreover, it requires no modifications to the detector tube. Besides improving image quality, high resolution decoding has the potential to lower power consumption and increase the detector signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, high resolution decoding allows the use of smaller telescopes while still preserving detector resolution, thereby decreasing satellite payload size and weight. Detector response measurements demonstrate that high resolution decoding yields at least a 60% enhancement in spatial resolution with a 25 micron MAMA detector. Detector response models which assume a Gaussian pixel response function for both low and high resolution pixels have been shown to match the actual measured detector response to within 9%. High resolution decoding is robust; variations in detector operating parameters produced at most a 6% difference in spatial resolution. Measurements of detector response indicate that the spatial resolution achieved by the high resolution decoding algorithm depends primarily on the microchannel plate pore resolution. Other parameters were found to have only second order effects on the spatial resolution. Detector responses of both the low resolution decoding and high resolution decoding algorithms display excellent temporal stability.

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