Performance of an analog ASIC developed for the front-end electronics of the soft x-ray imager onboard ASTRO-H

We report on the performance of an analog application-specified integrated circuit (ASIC) developed for the front-end electronics of the X-ray CCD camera system (SXI: Soft X-ray Imager) onboard the ASTRO-H satellite. The ASIC consists of four identical channels and they simultaneously process the CCD signals at the pixel rate of 68kHz. Delta-Sigma modulator is adopted to achieve effective noise shaping and obtain a high resolution decimal values with relatively simple circuits. We will implement 16 ASIC chips in total in the focal plane assembly. The results of the unit test shows that it works properly with moderately low input noise of <30μV at the pixel rate of 80kHz. Power consumption is sufficiently low of 150mW. Dynamic range of input signals is +-20mV that covers effective energy range of the CCD chips of SXI (0.2-20keV). The integrated non-linearity of 0.2% satisfies the same performance as the conventional CCD detectors in orbit. The radiation tolerance against total ionizing dose (TID) effect and single event latch-up (SEL) has also been investigated. The irradiation test using 60Co gamma-rays and proton beam showed that the ASIC has sufficient tolerance against TID up to 200 and 167krad respectively, which thoroughly exceeds the expected operating duration in the planned low-inclination low-earth orbit. The irradiation of the Fe ion beam also showed no latch-up nor malfunctions up to the fluence of 4.7x10^7ions. The threshold against SEL is larger than 1.68MeVcm^2/mg, which is sufficiently high enough that SEL events should not be a major cause of instrument downtime.