Medipix3: A 64 k pixel detector readout chip working in single photon counting mode with improved spectrometric performance

Medipix3 is a 256×256 channel hybrid pixel detector readout chip working in a single photon counting mode with a new inter-pixel architecture, which aims to improve the energy resolution in pixelated detectors by mitigating the effects of charge sharing between channels. Charges are summed in all 2×2 pixel clusters on the chip and a given hit is allocated locally to the pixel summing circuit with the biggest total charge on an event-by-event basis. Each pixel contains also two 12-bit binary counters with programmable depth and overflow control. The chip is configurable such that either the dimensions of each detector pixel match those of one readout pixel or detector pixels are four times greater in area than the readout pixels. In the latter case, event-by-event summing is still possible between the larger pixels. Each pixel has around 1600 transistors and the analog static power consumption is below 15 μW in the charge summing mode and 9 μW in the single pixel mode. The chip has been built in an 8-metal 0.13 μm CMOS technology. This paper describes the chip from the pixel to the periphery and first electrical results are summarized.