High speed and high performance signal processing for nuclear electronics

A vast amount of signal processing will soon be required in close proximity to high-energy physics detectors. The challenge is to transfer conventional electronics to VLSI technologies. This paper discusses the present trends in nuclear electronics and presents integrated realisations of two processing systems commonly used in high-energy physics experiments: a discriminator and a charge-to-time converter. The chips, fabricated in 1.2 /spl mu/m BiCMOS technology, feature high speed of operation and high-quality processing performance combined with reduced silicon area and power consumption.