A novel front-end electronic system with full-customized readout ASIC and post digital pulse shaping for CZT-based PET imaging

This paper presents a novel front-end electronic system dedicated to CZT detectors for positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging applications. It is implemented by full-customized readout application-specific integrated circuits with a post digital pulse shaping algorithm in FPGA. In the front-end readout ASIC, a preamplifier, a variable gain amplifier, a multiple-point sampling ramp ADC are integrated together. The digital CR-RC shaping and the digital trapezoidal shaping are implemented in a FPGA. A prototype front-end electronic board is implemented. Experiments results have been obtained. The detection range of the gamma ray is from 11.2 keV to 550 keV. The linearity of the output voltage is less than 1 %. The test results show that the proposed front-end electronics is appropriable for PET imaging applications.