Critical parameters and performance tests for the evaluation of digital data acquisition hardware

Recent developments of digital data acquisition systems allow real-time pre-processing of detector signals at a high count rate. These so-called pulse processing digitizers are powerful and versatile instruments offering techniques which are important for nuclear security, critical infrastructure protection, nuclear physics and radiation metrology. Certain aspects of digital data acquisition affect the performance of the total system in a critical way and therefore require special attention. This report presents a short introduction to digital data acquisition, followed by a discussion of the critical parameters which affect the performance in the lab and in the field. For some of the parameters, tests are proposed to assess the performance of digital data acquisition systems. Good practices are offered to guide the selection and evaluation of digital data acquisition systems. More general performance criteria which are not specifically related to digital data acquisition systems are discussed separately.