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PIXIE-4 User’s Manual
V2.69
©
XIA
2015. All rights reserved.
xxxi
analog gain
and offset
14bit
ADC
analog gain
and offset
14bit
ADC
analog gain
and offset
14bit
ADC
analog gain
and offset
14bit
ADC
FPGA –
trigger,
pileup,
FIFO
FPGA –
trigger,
pileup,
FIFO
DSP
Interface
logic
MCA ,
List mode
memory
32 bit,
33MHz
PCI
PCI
I/O
(J1)
clock,
trigger
(J2)
Veto
Figure 5.1:
Functional block diagram of the Pixie-4 front-end data acquisition and signal processing
card.
5.1 Analog Signal Conditioning
Each analog input has its own signal conditioning unit. The task of this circuitry is to adapt the
incoming signals to the input voltage range of the ADC, which spans 2V. Input signals are
adjusted for offsets, and there is a computer-controlled gain stage of switched relays. This helps
to bring the signals into the ADC's voltage range and set the dynamic range of the channel. A
fine tuning of the gain is achieved by multiplying the calculated energy values with digital gain
factors in the digital signal processor (DSP).
The ADC is not a peak sensing ADC, but acts as a waveform digitizer. In order to avoid
aliasing, we remove the high frequency components from the incoming signal prior to feeding
it into the ADC. The anti-aliasing filter, an active Sallen-Key filter, cuts off sharply at the
Nyquist frequency, namely half the ADC sampling frequency.
Though the Pixie-4 can work with many different signal forms, best performance is to be
expected when sending the output from a charge integrating preamplifier directly to the Pixie-
4 without any further shaping.
5.2 Real-time Processing Units
The real time processing units (RTPUs), one per two channels, consist of a field programmable
gate array (FPGA) which also incorporates a FIFO memory for each channel. The data stream
from the ADCs is sent to these units at the full ADC sampling rate. Using a pipelined
architecture, the signals are processed at this high rate, without the help of the on-board DSP.
Note that the use of one RTPU for two channels allows sampling the incoming signal at twice
the regular ADC clock frequency. If both channels are fed the same input signal, the RTPU can
give the second ADC a clock with a 180 degree phase shift, thus sampling the signal twice in