A 10-Bit, 12 ps Resolution CMOS Time-to-Digital Converter Dedicated to Ultra-Fast Optical Timing Applications

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Moez Kanoun (1)
  Mohamed Walid Ben Attouch (1)
  Yves B茅rub茅-Lauzi猫re (1)
  R茅jean Fontaine (1)
  
  1. Universit茅 de Sherbrooke ; Sherbrooke ; QC ; Canada
  
• 关键词：Time ; to ; digital converter ; Time ; correlated single photon counting ; Diffuse optical tomography ; Front ; end electronics for detector readout ; Instrumentation and methods for time ; of ; flight (TOF) spectroscopy
• 刊名：Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：April 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：34
• 期：4
• 页码：1129-1148
• 全文大小：1,280 KB
• 参考文献：1. Abas, AM, Bystrov, A, Kinniment, DJ, Maevsky, OV, Russell, G, Yakovlev, AV (2002) Time difference amplifier. Electron. Lett. 38: pp. 1437 CrossRef
  2. Boni, A, Pierazzi, A, Vecchi, D (2001) LVDS I/O interface for Gb/s-per-pin operation in 0.35 $$\mu $$ 渭 m CMOS. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 36: pp. 706 CrossRef
  3. Chen, P, Chen, CC, Shen, YS (2006) A low-cost low-power CMOS time-to-digital converter based on pulse stretching. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 53: pp. 2215 CrossRef
  4. Crotti, M, Rech, I, Ghioni, M (2012) Four channel, 40 ps resolution, fully integrated time-to-amplitude converter for time-resolved photon counting. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 43: pp. 699 CrossRef
  5. Dalla Mora, A, Tosi, A, Zappa, F, Cova, S, Contini, D, Pifferi, A, Spinelli, L, Torricelli, A, Cubeddu, R (2010) Fast-gated single-photon avalanche diode for wide dynamic range near infrared spectroscopy. IEEE. J. Sel. Top. Quant. 16: pp. 1023-1030 CrossRef
  6. Dehlaghi, B, Magierowski, S, Belostotski, L (2011) Highly-linear time-difference amplifier with low sensitivity to process variations. Electron. Lett. 40: pp. 743 CrossRef
  7. Guo, J, Sonkusale, S (2012) A 65 nm CMOS digital phase imager for time-resolved fluorescence imaging. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 47: pp. 1731 CrossRef
  8. Jansson, JP, Mantyniemi, A, Kostamovaara, J (2006) A CMOS time-to-digital converter with better than 10 ps single-shot precision. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 41: pp. 1286 CrossRef
  9. M. Kanoun, Y. B茅rub茅-Lauzi猫re, R. Fontaine, High precision time-to-amplitude converter for diffuse optical tomography applications. in IEEE 3rd International Conference on Design and Technology of Integrated Systems in Nanoscale Era. (2008)
  10. Lapointe, E, Pichette, J, B茅rub茅-Lauzi猫re, Y (2012) A multi-view time-domain non-contact diffuse optical tomography scanner with dual wavelength detection for intrinsic and fluorescence small animal imaging. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83: pp. 063703 CrossRef
  11. Lee, M, Abidi, AA (2008) A 9 b, 1.25 ps resolution coarse-fine time-to-digital converter in 90 nm CMOS that amplifies a time residue. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 43: pp. 769 CrossRef
  12. Mezzomo, CM, Bajolet, A, Cathignol, A, Frenza, R, Ghibaudo, G (2011) Characterization and modelling of transistor variability in advanced CMOS technologies. IEEE Trans. Electron Devices. 58: pp. 2235 CrossRef
  13. E. Saill, M. Vesterbacka, Thermometer-to-binary decoders for flash analog-to-digital converters. in 18th European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design (2007) p. 240
  14. Vercesi, L, Liscidini, A, Castello, R (2010) Two-dimensions vernier time-to-digital converter. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 45: pp. 1504 CrossRef
  15. Xing, N, Woo, JK, Shin, WY, Lee, H, Kim, S (2010) A 14.6 ps resolution, 50 ns input-range cyclic time-to-digital converter using fractional difference conversion method. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. 57: pp. 3064 CrossRef
  16. Yu, J, Dai, FF, Jaeger, RC (2010) A 12-bit vernier ring time-to-digital converter in 0.13 CMOS technology. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits. 45: pp. 830 CrossRef
  
• 刊物类别：Engineering
• 刊物主题：Electronic and Computer Engineering
  
• 出版者：Birkh盲user Boston
• ISSN：1531-5878

文摘

This paper reports the design of a 10-bit, high-resolution time-to-digital converter (TDC) based on Vernier residues amplification which is a novelty. This TDC architecture allows the measurement of wide time intervals with high picosecond-range resolution. The key benefits of the proposed TDC are that it reduces conversion jitter and provides more design flexibility to enhance matching performances of delay cells and thus reach high conversion linearity regardless of the process technology, which is a strong aspect of the approach. Simulations results show that the TDC achieves a timing resolution of 12 ps rms in a long 12.5 ns timing window, a low core power consumption of 4.8 mW and estimated differential and integral nonlinearities (DNL and INL) of 0.73 and 2.02 LSB with a standard deviation of 0.17 and 0.94 LSB respectively. The TDC, implemented in 0.13 mm CMOS technology, occupies a total silicon area of 1.83 \(\times \) 2.23 mm \(^2\) including pads. Such a TDC will find useful applications in tomographic systems, where several time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) channels need to be used in a massively parallel configuration such as in diffuse optical tomography or in time-of-flight positron emission tomography.