Readout electronics setup for the CSTD project

On the CSTD (Compton Semiconductor Tracker Detector) project at CIEMAT we have been developed an evaluation electronics setup for CdZnTe room temperature pixel detectors. This electronics setup will serve as the prototype of the first detector of a Compton gamma camera under development, also known as scatter detector or tracker. In coincidence to a second detector or calorimeter, the Compton detector determines the photon emission direction or Compton interaction angle within the detector by making use of the energy depositions and interaction positions registered in the first and second detectors. The electronics system designed at CIEMAT is composed of three boards. The front end electronics (FEE) card, the acquisition (ACQ) board and a parallel to PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) card. A 24 × 24 channel charge sensitive ASIC has been used for the front end board to readout the detector. The acquisition board controls and digitizes the ASIC analog data, manages different type of signal conversions and transmits ASIC data through a parallel interface cable. The 32 bit PCI card is addressed by a graphic user interface developed in Labwiew.