Experimental Qualification of a Low-Noise Charge-Sensitive ROIC with Very High Time Resolution

Abstract

Small charge detection is used for a wide range of applications: advanced industrial process control, experimental physics and space instruments, and material testing and medical imaging. These applications give rise to the development of a wide variety of charge-sensitive readout integrated circuits (ROICs). The trend in the state-of-the-art systems is to design low-noise and low-power readout electronics with a low detection error rate and small silicon area occupation, allowing the pixelization of the detector area. This paper presents the methodology and the test setup for the challenging experimental characterization of a state-of-the-art, high time-resolution, low-noise, power-efficient, charge-sensitive ROIC intended for counting single particles detected by a silicon PIN detector. The ROIC is designed to detect charge portions as small as 160 aC, with 0.14 mW power consumption. For every charge pulse of the detector, the ROIC generates voltage signals with a peak amplitude of 29.45 mV, a rise time of 2.56 ns, and an SNR above 20. Detailed information about the operation principle of this ROIC, designed in TSMC 40-nm MS/RF CMOS technology, is reported in a previous publication.