Test results of the readout electronics for nuclear applications (RENA) chip

A mixed signal Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip for front end readout electronics of position sensitive solid state detectors has been developed. The new ASIC is called RENA (Readout Electronics for Nuclear Applications). This chip can be used for large number of channels and high energy resolution astrophysics and nuclear physics detectors, and medical imaging instruments such as solid state gamma camera, Compton SPECT and Intraoperative probes. It can also be used for industrial imaging of X-rays and gamma rays used in nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and inspection (NDI). The RENA chip is a monolithic integrated circuit and has 32 channels with low noise charge sensitive amplifiers followed by a polarity amplifier and a high quality shaper circuit. It works in pulse counting mode with good energy resolution. It also has a self-triggering output which is essential for nuclear applications when the incident radiation arrives at random. Different, externally selectable, operational modes that include a sparse readout mode are available to increase data throughput. It also has externally selectable shaping (peaking) times. A full scale prototype RENA chip has been manufactured. The preliminary results of tests done on the prototype chip are presented.