Design and fabrication of the “AARDVARC”- Advanced ASoC Rapid Digitizer, Variable Adaptive Readout Chip

The detection of individual charged particles, photons and neutrons and estimation of their properties, momentum and direction of arrival is the basis for a wide range of scientific and commercial applications from high-energy, nuclear and astro-physics to medical imaging and diagnosis. We are targeting the data acquisition market for medium to large size scientific experiments in High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. These complex experiments require recording channels capable of fast data acquisition and signal processing. Furthermore, they need very long data buffers and resilience to hostile radiation environment. Rapid processing allows timing resolutions of few picosecond, translating into highly accurate estimation of charged particles and their tracks. This mandates design and development of custom electronic equipment to highly integrate functionality and performance and bring the cost per channel down. Especially, next generation HEP experiments require accuracy at or below 5 ps, resilience to radiation and very long buffering capability. We propose to design and make commercially available the “AARDVARC”: an highly integrated, high density System-on-a- Chip capableof state of the art waveform sampling, self-calibration, integrated readout and signal processing capabilities. The AARDVARC device will also have self-test, calibration and monitoring circuitryin addition to a deep sampling buffer making it suitable for large High Energy Physics experiments with potentially long trigger delays. Design, development and fabrication of the a first revision AARDVARC System-on-a-chip based on existing waveform sampling chips by integrating in 130 nm technology a waveform digitizer, autonomous control, digital readout, self-triggering. Test, design and fabrication of multiple revisions of the AARDVARC chip. The final outcome will be a fully tested and tuned 8 or 16 channels waveform sampler capable of self-calibration, radiation damage control, operating at or in excess of 10 billions of samples per second and with the timing accuracy of 5 picoseconds. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: This device can be used by scientists in high energy and nuclear physics experiments for fast analog data acquisition. Also, it has applications in general purpose instrumentations and medical/PET imaging, possibly bundled with sensing devices (photomultipliers). We anticipate to be able to sell the device as an OEM manufacturer, provide associated design services or license it to a larger device manufacturer. The low cost and low power nature of the design which will give us a competitive edge.