Design and Implementation of Digital Electronics for Fast Readout and Processing of Multi-Channel Experimental Data

The detection of individual photons, charged particles, neutrons, and atoms and molecules is the basis of a wide range of commercial and scientific applications, including medical imaging and diagnostics, mass spectroscopy, radiation scanners, reactor monitoring, and many scientific disciplines involving imaging such as nuclear, high-energy, and astro-physics. In many of these applications the time as well as the position of the arrival of a particle is measured. The primary market we are targeting is data acquisition in small to medium size scientific experiments in Nuclear Physics, High Energy Physics, and Gamma Ray/Particle/Astrophysics; areas which already have substantial experience with multi hundred channels of fast waveform sampling and processing. Applications that require timing in the picosecond range are still in need of cost effective, low power circuits and systems that can process the signal in the digital domain and also have a fast response and high throughput data handling capabilities. Currently, experimental physicists resort to designing their experiment equipment from scratch which includes a great deal of hardware, firmware and software design and integration. Also, current acquisition systems mostly use legacy analog signal conditioning and processing which is at its limit in terms of performance, cost and operable life. With the advent of new experiments in the US, there is an eminent need for a US based commercial supplier of digital electronic systems and circuits that can perform fast readout and signal processing and feature extraction on waveform data in experimental physics. Recent advances in fast digital processing hardware and software has made it possible to implement such readout and processing systems in a more scalable and integrable fashion entirely based on digital electronics that are highly capable of performing signal processing. We propose to design and make commercially available a readout controller with digital signal processing and feature extraction capabilities that can be deployed as a turnkey solution in experiments, once connected to a waveform sampling device. General statement of how this problem is being addressed: We propose to design and make commercially available a readout controller with digital signal processing and feature extraction capabilities that can be deployed as a turnkey solution in experiments, once connected to a waveform sampling device. Additionally, InnoSys., an American company, will be able to provide the product and the needed support for the high energy and nuclear physics experiments carried out in a national scale. What is to be done in Phase I: Design and making commercially available of an advanced electronic detector readout system with digital signal processing capabilities as a turnkey solution to be deployed in many high energy and nuclear physics experiments. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: An anticipated public benefit is the ability to further the particle physics knowledge base while also developing a domestic manufacturer and commercial base for low-cost, affordable timing products including, among other products, hardware, firmware and software for realtime digital signal processing and feature extraction system which, once connected to a high bandwidth (2 GHz and higher) waveform sampling application specific integrated circuit and related products, can produce timing resolution of <100 ps. The included development kits will be a valuable resource for any physicist who wishes to gather data or do feasibility studies for a large scale experiment. In addition, the technical, economic, social, and other benefits to the public to be realized from the successful completion of this project are significant and measurable.