Development of High Counting Rate Readout Electronics System for Large GEM Neutron Detector

A 512-channel high counting rate signal readout electronics system for GEM neutron detector was developed and tested to meet the demand of high-efficiency, high-resolution, and high-throughput two-dimensional position sensitive neutron detector in China Spallation Neutron Source. In this system, the Kintex-7 series FPGA was used as the center of system control and data analysis, and the eight AS20Board front-end readout chips were used to collect two-dimensional signals of detector with area of 200 mm×200 mm to achieve 512 channels data readout. These readout data were analyzed by FPGA and then transmitted to the computer through Gigabit Ethernet for display. The computer sends configuration commands through Gigabit Ethernet to configure the front-end sampling circuit and FPGA algorithm. The results of neutron beam experiment show that the highest instantaneous counting rate of this system is (1.2±0.1)×10⁶ s^-1.