Design of a Multichannel 10~14 Bits, 1 MSamples/s, Event-Driven Single-Slope Ramp ADC for Dark Matter Particle Detection

This paper presents design techniques and experimental results of a multichannel high-resolution single-slope ramp A/D converter with an event-driven mode applied to front-end electronics systems in the field of the dark matter particle detection. In order to quickly convert the peak voltage signals of front-end readout circuits and reduce the power consumption, a fully customized event-drive mode is adopted to support the A/D conversion. In addition, the readout resolution of the ADC is programmable to meet the requirements of front-end readout circuits with different sampling rates. An ASIC prototype has been designed in 0.18μm CMOS mixed-signal 3.3/1.8 V process. The die size is 2.3 mm × 2.3 mm. The post-simulation results are listed in the following. The input voltage range is 0.5 ~ 2.5 V. The DNL is – 1 LSB ~ + 0.8 LSB. The INL is − 3 LSB ~ + 1.5 LSB. The sampling rate is 100 kS/s ~ 3 MS/s. The power dissipation is 8 mW + 2.5 mW/channel. After testing, the functions of ASIC modules are normal, and more data analysis is being tested.