The new TOF Signal Acquisition solution engineered for speed, fidelity, and flexibility
The Challenge: When Fast Ions Demand More
Modern time-of-flight mass spectrometry pushes signal acquisition to its limits. Fast detector’s response with short width pulse for single ion response— some lasting less than a nanosecond — must be captured with extreme timing precision, high dynamic range, and no compromise on waveform fidelity. Instrument makers need platforms that deliver on all fronts, without sacrificing integration simplicity, long-term scalability -nor budget.
The SA3 is Acqiris' answer for the most demanding TOFMS environments.
SA3 Solution at a Glance
The SA3 is an excellent compact 12-bit DAQ card (a.k.a. digitizer) designed specifically for high-speed TOF pulse acquisition and advanced real-time signal analysis. Operating at up to 6.25 GS/s on a single channel or at 3.125 GS/s in dual channel mode — with any input channel configurable at full rate, and delivering up to 2.4 GHz of analog bandwidth, the SA3 sits at the heart of Acqiris' TOFMS portfolio — bridging the gap between maximum-performance solutions and cost-constrained designs.
It combines enhanced analog performance with Acqiris' proprietary AQTOF real-time processing engine, making it a uniquely capable platform for OEMs building next-generation TOFMS instruments.
Engineered for TOF Pulse Acquisition
Accurate capture of ultra-fast ion signals
The SA3 is optimized for pulses in the 0.8 to 5 ns range — the domain of ToF-SIMS, MALDI-TOF, SLIM-TOF, ICP-TOF, IMS-TOF, and related techniques where timing precision and ion separation are paramount.
At the heart of its analog front-end is a proprietary low-noise, low-distortion DC-coupled design with a 400 mV full-scale input range on a single channel — engineered to capture fast MCP output pulses with excellent fidelity. The result: 69 dBc dynamic range at 100 MHz, excellent baseline stability, and precise leading-edge timing with only 125fs of clock jitter.
A DC offset capability further allows OEMs to optimize the observable data window, adapting the acquisition range to the specific signal environment of their instrument.
AQTOF: Real-Time Intelligence at full Acquisition Speed
The SA3 is paired with Acqiris' AQTOF firmware and software framework — the real-time TOF processing engine shared across the Acqiris platform family.
AQTOF transforms raw digitized waveforms into actionable mass data, in real time:
- Peak-Listing (PKL): Accurate detection, analysis and timestamping of individual ion pulses, enabling high-throughput event-driven acquisition.
- Pre-accumulation: Onboard waveform averaging to improve signal-to-noise ratio — combinable with PKL for maximum flexibility.
- PAVG (Pulse Averaging): Intelligent signal averaging mode for enhanced sensitivity.
- New 2D Thresholding (Zero-suppress): A proprietary innovation that goes beyond standard zero-suppression. By adding a time-hysteresis dimension to noise filtering, it achieves improved dynamic range without sacrificing detection of low-amplitude peaks adjacent to intense signals.
- High-throughput streaming: Continuous data output with minimal dead time, supporting demanding acquisition duty cycles.
Beyond signal processing, AQTOF provides a common API across all Acqiris hardware platforms — dramatically simplifying system integration and enabling straightforward migration between SA-family digitizers as instrument requirements evolve.
Built for TOFMS OEMs
Flexibility where it matters
The SA3 is purpose-built for mass spectrometry OEMs. Its design philosophy reflects decades of Acqiris experience working alongside instrument manufacturers:
- True single PCI slot form factor — compact enough for space-constrained instrument enclosures, powerful enough for the most demanding signal environments.
- Customizable FPGA — enabling application-specific real-time processing and proprietary signal analysis algorithms implementation onboard.
- Flexible I/Os and applicative mezzanine options — adapting the hardware to the specific triggering or synchronization requirements of each instrument.
- Low power consumption — reducing thermal management constraints in compact systems.
- Acqiris standard signal fidelity optimizations — including ADC cores non-linearity compensation, interleave mismatch correction, DAQ response linearity optimization, digital equalization profiles, and baseline stabilization.
Key Specifications
- Resolution: 12-bit
- Max sample rate: 6.25 GS/s on 1 channel / 3.125 GS/s on 2 channels – with any channel configurable at 6.25 GS/s.
- Analog bandwidth: Up to 2.4 GHz
- Dynamic range: 69 dBc at 100 MHz
- Clock jitter: 125fs RMS
- Input range: 400 mV (ch1) / 1.1V (ch2) FSR (DC-coupled)
- Form factor: True single PCI slot
- FPGA: Customizable
- Software: AQTOF (common API, real-time PKL, PAVG, 2D thresholding, pre-accumulation)
High dynamic range. High bandwidth. High performance. Optimized for your instrument.
The SA3 efficiently completes the Acqiris TOFMS acquisition portfolio, delivering the high dynamic range and wide bandwidth that demanding general-purpose TOFMS applications require — at an optimized cost-performance balance. Whether you are developing a next-generation MALDI-TOF system, a high-resolution SLIM-TOF platform, or a demanding ICP-TOF instrument, the SA3 provides the acquisition performance and real-time processing depth to meet your specification — and the integration flexibility to meet your program timeline.
Learn more on AQTOF – Acqiris Solution for TOFMS and pulse analysis
The SA3 is part of the Acqiris TOFMS acquisition portfolio. Contact us to discuss your OEM integration requirements.
