Patent ID: 7378637

Claim:
A signal processing apparatus for processing pulses arriving randomly in time on at least one channel, a pulse having a time of arrival and an amplitude, the apparatus comprising: at least one trigger comparator, each trigger comparator having a trigger threshold voltage associated therewith, the at least one trigger comparator being associated with the at least one channel, each trigger comparator being adapted to generate a trigger signal in response to the amplitude of the pulse exceeding the trigger threshold voltage; a plurality of peak detectors; a switch adapted to connect the at least one channel receiving the pulse to one of the plurality of peak detectors in response to the trigger signal, the one of the plurality of peak detectors generating an analog signal representing a peak amplitude of the pulse; and a logic circuit, the logic circuit generating a write pointer, the write pointer asynchronously selecting the one of the plurality of peak detectors to be connected to the at least one channel receiving the pulse, the one of the plurality of peak detectors being the selected peak detector.