771 ISSN 0020-4412, Instruments and Experimental Techniques, 2019, Vol. 62, No. 6, pp. 771–777. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2019. Application of Computers in Experiments Design, Building and Evaluation of a New Generation of Multichannel Analyzers Implemented in Xilinx ZYNQ-7020 V. Esmaeili Sani a,b , M. Mohamadian a, *, I. Alizadeh a , and H. Afarideh a a Energy Engineering and Physics Department of Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, 15875-4413 Iran b Department of Medical Radiation Engineering, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, 1651153311 Iran *e-mail: Mohamadian@aut.ac.ir Received March 23, 2019; revised March 23, 2019; accepted May 2, 2019 Abstract–Recently, SoCs (System on a Chip) are the serious competitors and even more efficient systems than CPUs and other data processing systems based on FPGA and computer. Also, the Multi-Channel Ana- lyzer (MCA) is one of the main components of the nuclear electronics system that determines many of the radiation measurement parameters. A prototype of the proposed new generation of MCA systems, based on SoCs, is presented which is very small, compact, and at the same time, has the full functionality of a data acquisition board. It also has many features for analyzing output data and making changes to the overall sys- tem structure through software. The designed board uses ZYNQ to provide substrate and main infrastructure to add more peripherals for any specific application. The proposed system is in fact a multi-purpose system that can simultaneously provide the functionalities of an oscilloscope, computer-independent spectrum demonstration, and even any desired application for inaccessible radiation fields thanks to its low cost, light- ness and compact size. In addition, the designed analogue section in this system, besides the digital section, facilitates making the system more compact and flexible in order to fully customize, match and remove some conversional analogue parts. Keywords: Digital Spectroscopy, MCA, ZYNQ, SoCs, Software Defined DOI: 10.1134/S002044121906006X 1. INTRODUCTION Conventional Gamma Spectroscopy systems include preamplifier, main amplifier, pulse shaping circuits and, finally, an ADC converter for generating an MCA digital signal. In digital systems, however, after the pre-amplifier stage, digital pulse processing (DPP) systems are designed to perform all pulse shap- ing, noise reduction, filtering and other functions dig- itally from the beginning. In addition, if the input pulse rate is high, pileup cancelation or correction is another technique that can be implemented digitally much faster and in a more accurate way [1]. These techniques are also used in other digital analysis appli- cations such as coincidence PET system [2], radiation measurements [3]. Today, nuclear spectroscopy is conducted with an MCA. Basically, the MCA has two main sub-systems: An analogue subsystem that delivers detector output to the next stage, for initial amplification and converting analogue data to digital data. Also, there is a digital subsystem that analyzes data, reduces the system noise and performs other artifacts, including pile up correc- tion [4]. Using digital processors in addition to ana- logue circuits in nuclear spectroscopy can help improve performance and increase accuracy, and in some applications, increase computation speed [5]. Thus, various types of digital processors can be used in the MCA structure. However, the use of FPGA-based integrated circuits, which allows the hardware and software to be deployed on a single sys- tem, will help the final system to better function [6]. SoC systems are a good choice for this purpose. The SoC we used in our MCA is the ZYNQ chip from Xil- inx. The SoC family can be configured with Vivado’s high-level synthesis tool, which is an element that integrates all modules of a system into a chip or circuit that dramatically reduces its volume [7]. With this design, it reduces the cost and size of the device com- pared to the existing commercial MCAs. 2. MATERIAL AND METHOD In this paper, the design, construction and evalua- tion of a digital spectroscopy system including the APPLICATION OF COMPUTERS IN EXPERIMENTS