Presented at the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Semiconductor Short Course, October 21-23, 1981 San Francisco, California. To be published in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, June 1982 LBL-14145 uii.--i<:-U5 DEE2 013003 FAST-TIMING METHODS FOR SEMICONDUCTOR DETECTORS Helmuth Spieler GSI - Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung 6100 Darmstadt, West Germany and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory University of C a l i f o r n i a Berkeley, C a l i f o r n i a 94720 U.S.A. March, 1982 Prepared for the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098 T!Of!S ? T 7 • 'j.Eri rr;:rc — to permit tlif ?H ILLEGIBLE. It : jest available osdbleavail- This manuscript was printed from o r i g i n a l s provided by the author. DISTBi:,i;T -CUS1ENT IS UNLIMITED

Fast-timing methods for semiconductor detectors

This tutorial paper discusses the basic parameters which determine the accuracy of timing measurements and their effect in a practical application, specifically timing with thin-surface barrier detectors. The discussion focusses on properties of the detector, low-noise amplifiers, trigger circuits and time converters. New material presented in this paper includes bipolar transistor input stages with noise performance superior to currently available FETs, "noiseless" input terminations in sub-nanosecond preamplifiers and methods using transmission lines to couple the detector to remotely mounted preamplifiers. Trigger circuits are characterized in terms of effective rise time, equivalent input noise and residual jitter.

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Fast Timing Methods for Semiconductor Detectors

The design of a wide-band feedforward amplifier in the frequency range 30-300 MHz is described. Expressions are derived for feedforward amplifier sensitivity, and the effect of imperfect loop cancellation is described. The effect of circuit imbalance on gain and terminal impedances is investigated. The circuit is realized in thin-film hybrid form, and measurements show 20 dB of distortion improvement at 300 MHz. Practical aspects of circuit adjustment and operation are considered.

A wide-band feedforward amplifier

Two inductorless low-power differential low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) are designed for multiband wireless communication applications. Both LNAs are based on the combination of common-gate (CG) and shunt feedback topologies. In the first LNA, the cross-coupled push-pull structure with separated bias for nMOS and pMOS CG transistors is utilized to realize $g_{m}$ enhancement, partial noise cancellation, and bandwidth extension. In the second LNA, cascode transistors are utilized on the basis of the first topology to alleviate the Miller effect and to construct current steering structures, so as to extend the bandwidth. For both LNAs, in-depth analysis is given, and methods for sizing and biasing optimization under power constraint are proposed to obtain good overall performance tradeoffs while maintaining low-power consumption. The prototypes are implemented in 65-nm low-power CMOS technology. The first LNA achieves a gain of 21.2 dB, a noise figure (NF) of 3–3.5 dB over the 3-dB bandwidth of 200 MHz to 2.7 GHz and an IIP3 of −2 dBm at 1.1 GHz. It consumes 0.96 mW from 1.2-V supply. The second LNA exhibits a gain of 21.2 dB, an NF of 2.8–4 dB over the 3-dB bandwidth of 100 MHz to 4.3 GHz. It consumes 2 mW from 1.2-V supply. Each LNA occupies an area of 0.05 mm2.

Wideband Inductorless Low-Power LNAs with G m Enhancement and Noise-Cancellation

A linearized double-balanced active mixer circuit is described, including a first input for a local oscillator (LO), a second input for an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, and an output for a resulting product radio frequency (RF) signal. The mixer circuit also includes a feedback circuit, along with a pair of operational amplifiers, for the purpose of improving the intermodulation (IM) performance. According to a further embodiment, the mixer circuit includes a series-shunt feedback amplifier in place of the operational amplifier, and a further embodiment includes an additional pair of transistors to further improve the IM performance. The output of the mixer circuit includes a signal combining circuit, composed of either a network of resistors having two output terminals, or two transformers having a common output terminal.

Active double-balanced mixer with embedded linearization amplifiers

The design of a low-distortion, wide-band amplifier with 75-/spl Omega/ input and output impedances is described. Simultaneous shunt and series feedback is used and design equations are derived for terminal impedances, forward gain, loop gain, and noise figure. The advantages of a Darlington connection for low distortion are described. For 0-dBm signal levels, the amplifier achieves third-order intermodulation products of -88 dB relative to the carrier at 300 MHz and 12 channel cross-modulation (CM) of -77 dB at channel 13.

R. Chin

Papers

A wide-band ultralinear amplifier from 3 to 300 MHz