The complexity and resolving capability of radiation detectors have been steadily increasing. Front-end electronics, which provides the readout of signals from the sensing elements, has observed a corresponding increase in complexity, functionality, and transistor count. A major breakthrough came with the advent of front-end Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), which have enabled new classes of detectors to be built.
In this seminar, relevant aspects of front-end ASIC design will be summarized and compared with those of discrete design, and examples of ASIC architectures will be shown. Trends of front-end ASICs and their impact on the evolution of radiation detectors will be discussed. While the progress in front-end ASICs greatly supports and alleviates the detector design, it also opens a number of questions and challenges.