Patent ID: 7741607

Claim:
An imaging system having a scalable event processing architecture, comprising: a plurality of detector modules arranged around an associated imaging region to detect radiation events emitted from a subject disposed within the imaging region, each module has a plurality of processing elements; a data stream which serially traverses the processing elements transporting chronologically ordered radiation events; each of the plurality of processing elements performing the processing steps of: time-stamping detected radiation events; and inserting the time-stamped radiation events into a chronological order within the data stream of events; the data stream transporting the chronologically ordered radiation events through each module a plurality of times; a plurality of data paths that connect the plurality of processing elements within each module to selectively convey one or more time-stamped radiation events to an upstream or downstream one of the processing elements; and coincident detecting circuitry that receives the chronologically ordered stream of time-stamped radiation events and detects coincident pairs of time-stamped radiation events therein for use in reconstructing one or more associated images of the object.