MPRS: Medipix parallel readout system for angiography digital imaging

A fast readout system for the Medipix2 pixel chip has been developed for digital angiography applications to allow real time X-ray imaging of contrast media flowing in blood vessels. The readout system is designed to acquire data coming from the 32-bit Medipix2 parallel port of a maximum of eight chips at a rate of 25 frames per second. The readout electronics is peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus-based and consists of two boards: the motherboard directly interfacing the chip for settings and data flow and the PCI board linking the motherboard to the bus. With parallel readout, a transfer rate of up to 64 MByte/s has been achieved.