FPGA-based TDC for SiPM Timing and Amplitude Measurements

Abstract

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are widely used in photon-counting applications, such as positron emission tomography or particle physics, where precise timestamps and photoelectron number information are both required. In this work, a Time-to-Digital Converter with amplitude measurement capabilities was designed using an Artix-7 XC7A35T FPGA. For amplitude measurements, the internal xADC of the FPGA was chosen over other alternatives for simplicity. This design has two channels and can operate in timestamp-only mode or timestamp + amplitude mode. In turn, channels can be operated independently or in coincidence. The Integral Non-Linearity and Differential Non-Linearity of the design were studied, along with its time resolution, which is (19 ± 1) ps. Using a CAEN DT5810 pulse emulator, the design was tested further in timing-only mode, timing + amplitude mode and in coincidence mode to showcase its performance when using Poisson distributed SiPM-like pulses of various amplitudes.

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Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{finazzi2026fpgabased,
  title = {{FPGA-based TDC for SiPM Timing and Amplitude Measurements}},
  author = {Lucas Finazzi and Felipe Soriano and Leandro Gagliardi and Federico Golmar},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.31135},
  eprint = {2608.31135},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.31135},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - FPGA-based TDC for SiPM Timing and Amplitude Measurements
AU  - Lucas Finazzi
AU  - Felipe Soriano
AU  - Leandro Gagliardi
AU  - Federico Golmar
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/31
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.31135
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.31135
AB  - Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are widely used in photon-counting applications, such as positron emission tomography or particle physics, where precise timestamps and photoelectron number information are both required. In this work, a Time-to-Digital Converter with amplitude measurement capabilities was designed using an Artix-7 XC7A35T FPGA. For amplitude measurements, the internal xADC of the FPGA was chosen over other alternatives for simplicity. This design has two channels and can operate in timestamp-only mode or timestamp + amplitude mode. In turn, channels can be operated independently or in coincidence. The Integral Non-Linearity and Differential Non-Linearity of the design were studied, along with its time resolution, which is (19 ± 1) ps. Using a CAEN DT5810 pulse emulator, the design was tested further in timing-only mode, timing + amplitude mode and in coincidence mode to showcase its performance when using Poisson distributed SiPM-like pulses of various amplitudes.
ER  -

Abstract

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