We developed a new front-end application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for the upgrade of the Maia x-ray microprobe. The ASIC instruments 32 configurable front-end channels that perform either positive or negative charge amplification, pulse shaping, peak amplitude and time extraction along with buffered analog storage. At a gain of 3.6 V/fC, 1 μs peaking time and a temperature of 248 K, an electronic resolution of 13- and 10 electrons rms was measured with and without a SDD sensor respectively. A spectral resolution of 170 eV FWHM at 5.9 keV was obtained with an 55Fe source. The channel linearity was better than ± 1 % with rate capabilities up to 40 kcps. The ASIC was fabricated in a commercial 250 nm process with a footprint of 6.3 mm x 3.9 mm and dissipates 167 mW of static power.
@article{arxiv.1905.05311,
title = {Development of a High Rate Front-end ASIC for X-ray Spectroscopy and Diffraction Applications},
author = {Emerson Vernon and Gianluigi De Geronimo and Jonathan Baldwin and Wei Chen and Jack Fried and Gabriele Giacomini and Anthony Kuczewski and John Kuczewski and Joe Mead and Antonino Miceli and John S. Okasinski and Don Pinelli and Orlando Quaranta and Abdul K. Rumaiz and Peter Siddons and Graham Smith and Milutin Stanacevic and Russell Woods},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.05311},
year = {2019}
}