A comparison of the high count-rate performance of three commercially available digital signal processors

Three commercial γ-ray digital signal processors, a Canberra InSpector 2000, an ORTEC DigiDART, and an X-ray Instrumentation Associates Polaris system, coupled to a Canberra 2002C resistive-feedback preamplifier-equipped high-purity germanium detector, were performance tested to input rates of 440 kHz. The spectrometers were evaluated on their throughput, stability and peak shape performance. The accuracy of their quantitative corrections for dead time and pile-up were also tested. All three of the tested units performed well at input rates that strain most analog spectroscopy systems.