Multi-channel data acquisition system for nuclear pulse processing

We have developed a compact, inexpensive electronics package that can digitize pulse amplitudes or current measurements from 32 detector outputs in parallel. The electronics package consists of two circuit boards: a custom acquisition board and an off-the-shelf processing board. The acquisition board features a custom-designed integrated circuit that contains an array of charge-to-pulse-width converters. The processing board contains a field programmable gate array that digitizes the pulse widths, performs event discrimination, constructs energy histograms, and executes any user-defined software. Together, the two boards cost around $1000. The module can transfer data to a computer or operate entirely as a standalone system. The design achieves 0.20% nonlinearity and 0.18% FWHM precision at full scale. However, the overall performance could be improved with some modifications to the integrated circuit.