PARISROC, a photomultiplier array readout chip

TL;DR

PARISROC is a specialized ASIC designed for large-scale photomultiplier arrays in neutrino detection, enabling triggerless, cost-effective data acquisition with integrated charge and time measurement capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a fully integrated 16-channel front-end ASIC for photomultiplier arrays, optimized for triggerless acquisition in large neutrino detectors.

Findings

Supports triggerless data acquisition

Integrates 16 independent channels with variable gain

Provides charge and time measurements with high-resolution ADC and counter

Abstract

PARISROC is a complete read out chip, in AMS SiGe 0.35 micron technology, for photomultipliers array. It is a front-end electronics ASIC which allows triggerless acquisition for the next generation of neutrino experiments. These detectors have place in megaton size water tanks and will require very large surface of photo-detection. An R & D program, funded by French national agency for research and called PMm2, proposes to segment the very large surface of photo-detection in macro pixels made of 16 photomultiplier tubes connected to an autonomous front-end electronics. The ASIC allows triggerless acquisition and only send out the relevant data by network to the central data storage. This data management reduces considerably the cost of these detectors. This paper describes the front-end electronics ASIC called PARISROC which integrates totally independents 16 channels with a variable gain and provides charge and time measurement with a 12-bit ADC and a 24-bits Counter.