Abstract
This article presents an application of a novel technique for precise measurements of time and charge based solely on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) device for positron emission tomography (PET). The described approach simplifies electronic circuits, reduces the power consumption, lowers costs, merges front-end electronics with digital electronics, and also makes more compact final design. Furthermore, it allows to measure time when analog signals cross a reference voltage at different threshold levels with a very high precision of ~15 ps (rms) and thus enables sampling of signals in a voltage domain.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the technical and administrative support by M. Adamczyk, T. Gucwa-Ryś, A. Heczko, M. Kajetanowicz, G. Konopka-Cupiał, J. Majewski, W. Migdał, and A. Misiak and the financial support by the Polish National Center for Development and Research through grant INNOTECH-K1/IN1/64/159174/NCBR/12, the Foundation for Polish Science through MPD programme, and the EU and MSHE Grant No. POIG.02.03.00-161 00-013/09.
Conflict of interest statement
Authors’ conflict of interest disclosure: The authors stated that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article. Research funding played no role in thestudy design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretationof data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision tosubmit the report for publication.
Research funding: None declared.
Employment or leadership: None declared.
Honorarium: None declared.
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