High speed digitizing photomultiplier tube base for the KTeV CsI calorimeter

摘要

A circuit has been designed to digitize PMT signals over an 18-bit dynamic range with 8-bits of resolution. The crucial element of the circuit is the custom charge integrating and encoding (QIE) ASIC. This chip is designed to operate at rates up to 53 MHz, and, in conjunction with an 8-bit FADC, generates 12-bit floating point output. Bench tests of a 17-bit version of the digital base demonstrated excellent noise performance, linearity and pedestal and gain stability. Twenty-five channels of digitizing PMT bases have been built and used for readout of a CsI array in a test beam at CERN. Performance of these devices in a beam environment is discussed.