  On a very fundamental level, particle detectors share similar requirements
for their read-out chain. This is reflected in the way that typical read-out
solutions are developed, where a previous design is taken and modified to fit
some changes in requirements. One of the two common approaches is the
current-based read-out, where the waveform of the sensor output is sampled in
order to later extract information from there. This approach is used in many
detector applications using scintillation based detectors, including PET. With
this contribution, we will introduce how we use Matlab in order to simulate the
read-out electronics of particle detectors. We developed this simulation
approach as a base for our ongoing development of software-defined read-out
ASICs that cover the requirements of a variety of particle detector types.
Simulink was chosen as a base for our developments as it allows simulation of
mixed-signal systems and comes with built-in toolkits to aid in developments of
such systems. With our approach, we want to take a new look at how we approach
designing such a read-out, with a focus on digital signal processing close to
the sensor, making use of known signal characteristics and modern methods of
communications engineering. We are taking into account the time profile of an
event, the bandwidth-limiting properties of the sensor and attached
electronics, digitization stages and finally the parameterization of approaches
for digital processing of the signal. We will show how we are applying the
design approach to the development of a read-out for the proposed SHiP SBT
detector, which is a scintillation based detector relying on SiPMs sensors,
using this as an example for our modelling approach and show preliminary
results.
