A 120 dB dynamic-range radiation-tolerant charge-to-digital converter for radiation monitoring

We present a radiation-tolerant 120dB dynamic-range interface circuit for ionization chambers and diamond detectors. The device consists of a multi-scale continuous-time incremental charge-to-digital converter paired with a temperature-compensated current reference. The circuit selects the sensitivity according to the input signal level and provides a 20-bit plus sign output code every 40 µ s . The proposed interface circuit achieves a measurement linearity error better than?5% in the 40fC-42nC range. The ASIC has been designed for radiation-tolerance in a 0.25 µ m 3M1P CMOS technology and tested for TID up to 100kGy(Si), showing uninterrupted functionality. The conversion reference drifts of 3% at 100kGy(Si) and its temperature coefficient is less than 600ppm/?C. HighlightsA novel multi-ranging A/D topology for charge-to-digital conversion is presented.The front-end provides a fast conversion, compared to similar works and it is suitable for instrumentation, in particular radiation monitoring.Issues regarding measurement errors due to manufacturing mismatches, temperature and radiation are addressed.The work was experimentally verified and the results are presented.

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