A High-Precision Particle Detection ROIC With an Active Shaper in 40 nm CMOS with Sub 200 aC Sensitivity

Abstract

Accurate registration of weak charge signals with a high event rate is the most challenging requirement of state-of-the-art detector readout frontends. This has given rise to the development of a wide variety of low-noise power-efficient readout frontends with a trend in achieving an ultra-small detection error and small silicon area occupation. This paper presents the methodology and experimental characterization of a state-of-the-art particle detection ROIC (readout integrated circuit) employing an active shaper after the frontend charge-sensitive amplifier (CSA), with: high time resolution (2.5 ns), low-noise, and very good power-efficiency, for registering charge signals between 140 aC and 200 aC, resulting from particles impinging in a silicon PIN detector. The small silicon area occupation of the readout electronic circuit allows a small detector area, which, in backside illumination/exposure mode, provides the opportunity for the pixelization of the total detector area with close to a 100 % fill factor. Experimental verification tests indicate that the proposed ROIC, designed in TSMC 40 nm MS/RF CMOS technology, operates with 3-sigma error rates between 1.8 ppm and 1.3 ppm (parts per million), with the above-mentioned charge signal range, provided that no more than one particle hits the detector surface in a 2.5 ns period of time. The power consumption is 0.37 mW.