A functionally reconfigurable detector head for scintimammography

A novel prototype detector for scintimammography is presented. The detector is built according to a modular strategy. Each module is composed of an array of p–i–n diodes, coupled to a CsI(Tl) scintillator and to mixed-mode ASICs with self-triggering, sparsifying, A/D conversion and bidirectional serial data I/O transfer capabilities. The front-end electronics exhibits good performance in terms of equivalent input noise charge (ENCo100 e rms). Digital signals are routed out so that each module can be attached to a main board with an FPGA for overall detector management. PC-based supervision of the detector is accomplished using a LabVIEW graphical user interface.