A data acquisition system for two-dimensional position sensitive micropattern gas detectors with delay-line readout

We present a data acquisition (DAQ) system for two-dimensional position sensitive micropattern gas detectors using the delay-line method for readout. The DAQ system consists of a field programmable gate array (FPGA) as the main data processor and our time-to-digital (TDC) mezzanine card for making time measurements. We developed the TDC mezzanine card around the Acam TDC-GPX ASIC and it features four independent stop channels referenced to a common start, a typical timing resolution of similar to 81ps, and a 17-bit measurement range, and is compliant with the VITA 57.1 standard. For our DAQ system, we have chosen the Xilinx SP601 development kit which features a single Spartan 6 FPGA, 128 MB of DDR2 memory, and a serial USB interface for communication. Output images consist of 1024 x 1024 square pixels, where each pixel has a 32-bit depth and corresponds to a time difference of 162 ps relative to its neighbours. When configured for a 250 ns acquisition window, the DAQ can resolve periodic event rates up to 1.8 x 10(6) Hz without any loses and will report a maximum event rate of 6.11 x 10(5) Hz for events whose arrival Limes follow Poisson statistics. The integral and differential non-linearities have also been measured and are better than 0.1% and 1.5%, respectively. Unlike commercial units, our DAQ system implements the delay-line image reconstruction algorithm entirely in hardware and is particularly attractive for its modularity, low cost, ease of integration, excellent linearity, and high throughput rate. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.