A portable acquisition system based on USB standard for the Medipix2 X-ray detector

We describe a portable readout system for a X-ray hybrid detector based on the Medipix2 pixel readout chip. The Medipix2 chip is bump-bonded with a pixellated Silicon sensor 300 micron thick. The readout system consists of a simple small size electronic card based on a single powerful microcontroller and can be connected to a personal computer through the widespread universal serial bus (USB) interface. The reduced size of the final card (3.8 cm/spl times/4.8 cm) makes it suitable for special application like dental radiology.