A new family of pixel detectors for high frame rate X-ray applications

We are developing a new family of hybrid, single photon counting X-ray detectors for very high frame rate applications. A dedicated readout chip was designed, to be used as building block for detectors up to 9 Mpixel and about 550cm2 area. It has an area of 19.3x20.0mm2 and contains 256x256 pixels of 75x75μm2, resulting in an active region of 19.2x19.2mm2. Each pixel contains a 12 bit counter with double buffering for continuous image acquisition. Moreover, it allows a partial readout (4, 8 or 12 bits) with corresponding frame rates up to 24, 12 and 8 kHz. The chip is designed with Hardening By Design techniques , to obtain high radiation tolerance from a standard commercial 0.25μm CMOS technology. The chip was recently received from fabrication and it is at present under test.