Multichannel analyzer for nuclear spectrometry with FPGA using Vivado

The different applications of ionizing radiation have made this a very significant and useful tool, in turn can be dangerous for living beings if they are exposed to uncontrolled doses. However, due to its characteristics, cannot be perceived by the five senses, in such a way that in order to know the presence of it, radiation detectors and additional devices are required that allow to quantify and classify it. This is the case of the multichannel analyzer that is responsible for separating the different pulse heights that are generated in the detectors, in a certain number of channels; according to the number of bits of the analog to digital converter. The development or conditioning of nuclear technology has increased considerably due to the demand of the applications; therefore this allows developing systems that cover some commercial requirements, cost and volume in relation to the user needs. The objective of the work was to design and implement an intellectual property core (IP Core) which functions as a multichannel analyzer for nuclear spectrometry. For the IP Core design methodology, its components were created in VHDL hardware description language and packaged in the Vivado design suite, making use of resources such as the ARM processor cores that the Zynq chip contains. Likewise, for the first phase of the implementation, the hardware architecture was embedded in the FPGA and the application for the ARM processor was programmed in C language. For the second phase, the management, control and visualization of the results, a virtual instrument was developed in the LabView programming platform. The data obtained as a result of the development and implementation of the IP Core was observed graphically in a histogram that is part of the aforementioned virtual instrument. (Author)