Architecture and Implementation of OpenPET Firmware and Embedded Software.

OpenPET is an open source, modular, extendible, and high-performance platform suitable for multi-channel data acquisition and analysis. Due to the flexibility of the hardware, firmware, and software architectures, the platform is capable of interfacing with a wide variety of detector modules not only in medical imaging but also in homeland security applications. Analog signals from radiation detectors share similar characteristics - a pulse whose area is proportional to the deposited energy and whose leading edge is used to extract a timing signal. As a result, a generic design method of the platform is adopted for the hardware, firmware, and software architectures and implementations. The analog front-end is hosted on a module called a Detector Board, where each board can filter, combine, timestamp, and process multiple channels independently. The processed data is formatted and sent through a backplane bus to a module called Support Board, where 1 Support Board can host up to eight Detector Board modules. The data in the Support Board, coming from 8 Detector Board modules, can be aggregated or correlated (if needed) depending on the algorithm implemented or runtime mode selected. It is then sent out to a computer workstation for further processing. The number of channels (detector modules), to be processed, mandates the overall OpenPET System Configuration, which is designed to handle up to 1,024 channels using 16-channel Detector Boards in the Standard System Configuration and 16,384 channels using 32-channel Detector Boards in the Large System Configuration.

Near Theoretical Gigabit Link Efficiency for Distributed Data Acquisition Systems.

Link efficiency, data integrity, and continuity for high-throughput and real-time systems is crucial. Most of these applications require specialized hardware and operating systems as well as extensive tuning in order to achieve high efficiency. Here, we present an implementation of gigabit Ethernet data streaming which can achieve 99.26% link efficiency while maintaining no packet losses. The design and implementation are built on OpenPET, an opensource data acquisition platform for nuclear medical imaging, where (a) a crate hosting multiple OpenPET detector boards uses a User Datagram Protocol over Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) Ethernet soft-core, that is capable of understanding PAUSE frames, to stream data out to a computer workstation; (b) the receiving computer uses Netmap to allow the processing software (i.e., user space), which is written in Python, to directly receive and manage the network card's ring buffers, bypassing the operating system kernel's networking stack; and

An integrated open-cavity system for magnetic bead separation and manipulation.

Superparamagnetic beads are generally used in biomedical assays to manipulate, maneuver, separate, and transport bio-materials. We present a low-cost integrated system designed in bulk 0.5 µm process to automate the manipulation and separation process of magnetic beads. The system consists of an 8 × 8 coil-array suitable for a single bead manipulation, or collaborative manipulation using pseudoparallel executions. The size of a single coil is 30 µm × 30 µm and the driver DC current source supports 8 different levels up to 1.5 mA. The total power consumption of the entire system is 9 mW when running at full power and it occupies an area of 248 µm × 248 µm.