Building a Decision Engine for Neutron/g Measurements

FIeld-Programmable Detection

Flash ADC based, FPGA firmware readout

Digital Pulse Processing (DPP) for Pulse Heights (PHA)

100/250 MHz, 12 bit

Digital Pulse Processing (DPP) for Charge Integration (CI)

Digital Pulse Processing (DPP) for Pulse Heights (PHA)

Digital Pulse Processing (DPP) for Charge Integration (CI)

The traditional system

Neutron PSD Logic

Digitization

AcquisitionAnalysis

The FPGA based System

Field Programmable Gated Array

Neutron PSD, ToF, Digitization, Analysis, List Output, DECISION

The FPGA SystemField Programmable Gated Array

Advantages• Cost ! Conventional System

$2.5k per channel, FIND $0.5k per channel

• No overhead on scaling system up

• Much fewer electronic models• Reduced Data Size• Field Configurable• Commercial solution and

partnership (CAEN)

Initial Tests• Proved neutron PSD• Time-of-Flight• PH HPGe (same resolution)• Rates (100% Live Time)• FPGA Logic