Novel Front-End Design with High-voltage Transceiver ASICs for Ultrasound Computed Tomography

3D Ultrasound Computed Tomography (USCT) is an imaging method for early breast cancer detection. The third generation 3 USCT device is developed at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The USCT III device has a hemispherical transducer distribution and emits and receives nearly spherical waves. This enables reflection and transmission imaging simultaneously and fully in 3D. The main challenges for the front-end design are to integrate a large number of transducers, to allow high voltage coded excitation, and to receive low amplitude signals with high quality. These challenges were solved using a smart sensor frontend design with a custom application specific integrated circuit (ASIC)

The New Generation of the KIT 3D USCT

The first clinical studies with our current prototype, 3D USCT II, enabled us to identify the necessary improvements for transition of our method to clinical practice. The main goals are to improve the contrast of reflection and transmission tomography, and to optimize the coverage of the imaged breast by a new geometry of the transducer distribution. Furthermore, for cost-effective industrial mass production, a self-calibration method allows us to relax the precision of the positioning of the transducers to 0.1 mm. The readout of the transducer arrays is now carried out by an ASIC, developed for a more cost-effective design. The coupling of the measuring device to the patient was optimized to cover the full size of the breast up to the pectoral muscles. Finally, the data acquisition and readout time were reduced to 1.5 minutes each by new micro-TCA electronics and larger FPGAs

Transceiver ASIC in HVCMOS Technology for 3D Ultrasound Computer Tomography

Abstract3D Ultrasound Computer Tomography (3D USCT) is an imaging method for the early de-tection of breast cancer. It provides three-dimensional multimodal images of the breast. Thenew 3D USCT device developed currently at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology containsmore than two thousand ultrasound transducers placed in a water-filled aperture where thepatient submerges one breast. The ultrasound transducers are grouped as transducer arraysystems (TAS) of 18 receiver (RX) and transmitter (TX) elements. The transducer front-end electronics contain high-voltage (HV) and low-voltage (LV) amplifiers and switcheswhich are implemented as an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). This contribu-tion presents a patented mixed signal, multichannel, transceiver ASIC developed in a com-mercial 350 nm high-voltage CMOS (HV-CMOS) process. The HV-CMOS process provideslow-voltage and high-voltage transistors that can be combined on the same substrate. TheHV transistors can sustain voltages up to 120 V

Determination of fatty acids profile in original brown cows dairy products and relationship with alpine pasture farming system

This study aimed to evaluate the relationships between fatty acids and the pattern that most contributes to discriminate between two farming systems, in which the main difference was the practice, or not, of alpine summer-grazing. Milk and cheese were sampled every month in two farms of Original Brown cows identical under geographical location and management during no grazing season point of view in the 2018 season. Fatty acids concentrations were determined by gas chromatography. The principal component analysis extracted three components (PCs). Mammary gland de novo synthetized fatty acids (C14:0, C14:1 n9, and C16:0) and saturated and monosaturated C18 fatty acids (C18:0, C18:1 n9c) were inversely associated in the PC1; PC2 included polyunsaturated C18 fatty acids (C18:2 n6c, C18:3 n3) and C15:0 while conjugated linoleic acid (CLA n9c, n11t) and fatty acids containing 20 or more carbon atoms (C21:0, C20:5 n3) were associated in the PC3. The processes of rumen fermentation and de novo synthesis in mammary gland that are, in turn, influenced by diet, could explain the relationships between fatty acids within each PC. The discriminant analyses showed that the PC2 included the fatty acids profile that best discriminated between the two farming systems, followed by PC3 and, lastly, PC1. This model, if validated, could be an important tool to the dairy industry

Development of a modular test system for the silicon sensor R&D of the ATLAS Upgrade

High Voltage CMOS sensors are a promising technology for tracking detectors in collider experiments. Extensive R&D studies are being carried out by the ATLAS Collaboration for a possible use of HV-CMOS in the High Luminosity LHC upgrade of the Inner Tracker detector. CaRIBOu (Control and Readout Itk BOard) is a modular test system developed to test Silicon based detectors. It currently includes five custom designed boards, a Xilinx ZC706 development board, FELIX (Front-End LInk eXchange) PCIe card and a host computer. A software program has been developed in Python to control the CaRIBOu hardware. CaRIBOu has been used in the testbeam of the HV-CMOS sensor AMS180v4 at CERN. Preliminary results have shown that the test system is very versatile. Further development is ongoing to adapt to different sensors, and to make it available to various lab test stands

Infrastructure for Detector Research and Development towards the International Linear Collider

The EUDET-project was launched to create an infrastructure for developing and testing new and advanced detector technologies to be used at a future linear collider. The aim was to make possible experimentation and analysis of data for institutes, which otherwise could not be realized due to lack of resources. The infrastructure comprised an analysis and software network, and instrumentation infrastructures for tracking detectors as well as for calorimetry.Comment: 54 pages, 48 picture

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson