Imaging X-ray detector front-end with high dynamic range: IDeF-X HD

Presented circuit, IDeF-X HD (Imaging Detector Front-end) is a member of the IDeF-X ASICs family for space applications. It has been optimized for a half millimeter pitch CdTe or CdZnTe pixelated detector arranged in 16×16 array. It is aimed to operate in the hard X-ray range from few keV up to 250 keV or more. The ASIC has been realized in AMS 0.35 μm CMOS process. The IDeF-X HD is a 32 channel analog front-end with self-triggering capability. The architecture of the analog channel includes a chain of charge sensitive amplifier with continuous reset system and non-stationary noise suppressor, adjustable gain stage, pole-zero cancellation stage, adjustable shaping time low pass filter, baseline holder and peak detector with discriminator. The power consumption of the IDeF-X HD is 800 μW per channel. With the in-channel variable gain stage the nominal 250 keV dynamic range of the ASIC can be extended up to 1 MeV anticipating future applications using thick sensors. Measuring the noise performance without a detector at the input with minimized leakage current (programmable) at the input, we achieved ENC of 33 electrons rms at 10.7 μs peak time. Measurements with CdTe detector show good energy resolution FWHM of 1.1 keV at 60 keV and 4.3 keV at 662 keV with detection threshold below 4 keV. In addition, an absolute temperature sensor has been integrated with resolution of 1.5 °C.