A multi-GS/s, radiation tolerant analog-to-digital converter to improve timing resolution and accuracy of pixelated detectors

Cost-effective and power-efficient radiation tolerant semiconductors are needed in various harsh environments, such as particle detectors, communication satellites, high-altitude avionics and medical imagining equipment. These include amplifiers, voltage regulators, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital logic circuitry. However, radiation-tolerant high-speed ADCs currently cost more than $30,000 per channel and have a high power consumption. A novel high-speed radiation tolerant ADC is proposed, leveraging TallannQuest’s patented rad-hard-by- design technology, offering significantly lower power consumption and smaller size than what is offered by the current state of the art. This will result in an order of magnitude lower cost per channel, and will allow for greater integration of multiple ADCs into a single integrated circuit (IC). Such integrated solution, which may represent an entire analog front-end for detectors used in nuclear physics experiments, as well is in other applications (e.g., satellite communications and medical imaging equipment), is an anticipated outcome from the extension of this Phase 1 research project into a Phase 2 project.