Detection limits of front-end IC architectures for hybrid imaging X-ray detectors

An ideal readout circuit would detect X-ray beam with full spectral information and Fano-limited precision and would deal with high count rates, limited only by charge transport within the detector. Unfortunately in a real readout IC in particular the performance in speed and noise are conflicting requirements. In this review the speed-noise trade-off is discussed, referring to the recent ICs for hybrid detectors: those with best results in the energy resolution and those with the highest counting rates. ICs demonstrating the best performance from each end and also intermediate solutions are analysed.