Readout electronics for position-sensitive gas filled detectors at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

One- or two-dimensional gas filled detectors based on the space-time conversion by the delay line readout principle are in use at several European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) beam lines. Presented is a description of the building blocks of the readout electronics, which rely on a comprehensive set of boards developed at ESRF. Those boards are compliant with the VME industrial standard. In particular a new VME time-to-digital converter is detailed. It features a bin size of 400 ps (250 ps on sorted out components), a measurement range of 14 bits, a fast throughput of 2 x 10(6) event/s and a sophisticated built-in pile-up rejection logic. A VME histogramming module, closely coupled to the time-to-digital converter, works at a sustained acquisition rate of 2 x 10(6) event/s. Those electronics are operating reliably at several ESRF beam lines. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)01601-9].