System for photon counting with Silicon Photomultiplier

In the paper a system for photon counting based on Silicon Photomultiplier detector is presented. It is a novel detector for low-level light detection, composed of the matrix of avalanche photodiodes. The system is based on the programmable FPGA chip of Spartan-3 family. A Picoblaze softprocessor feature has been implemented in this device, to increase development flexibility and to simplify a data flow control.