Monolithic time-to-digital converter with 20ps resolution

We present a fully-integrated time-to-digital converter, in a standard 0.8/spl mu/m-CMOS technology, based on a cyclic pulse-shrinking design, that provides the lowest channel width of 20ps ever reported in literature for a single-shot measurements performed by monolithic circuits, with differential linearity errors lower than 10ps (less than 0.5LSB), conversion time shorter than 20/spl mu/s, and 18ns full-scale-range.

[1]  F. Zappa,et al.  Tools for non-invasive optical characterization of CMOS circuits , 1999, International Electron Devices Meeting 1999. Technical Digest (Cat. No.99CH36318).

[2]  J. Kostamovaara,et al.  A low-power CMOS time-to-digital converter , 1995 .

[3]  Poki Chen,et al.  A CMOS pulse-shrinking delay element for time interval measurement , 2000 .

[4]  Zongqiang Xuan,et al.  Some new methods for precision time interval measurement , 1997, Proceedings of International Frequency Control Symposium.

[5]  D. O'connor,et al.  Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting , 1984 .

[6]  A. Mantyniemi,et al.  An integrated digital CMOS time-to-digital converter with 92 ps LSB , 1998, 1998 Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (Cat. No. 98CB36268).

[7]  Jorgen Christiansen An integrated CMOS 0.15 ns digital timing generator for TDC's and clock distribution systems , 1995 .

[8]  Roberto Roncella,et al.  A 250-ps time-resolution CMOS multihit time-to-digital converter for nuclear physics experiments , 1999 .

[9]  P. Dudek,et al.  A high-resolution CMOS time-to-digital converter utilizing a Vernier delay line , 2000, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[10]  Timo Rahkonen,et al.  A high resolution digital CMOS time-to-digital converter based on nested delay locked loops , 1999, ISCAS'99. Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems VLSI (Cat. No.99CH36349).

[11]  Andrea L. Lacaita,et al.  Photoluminescence lifetime microscope spectrometer based on time‐correlated single‐photon counting with an avalanche diode detector , 1990 .

[12]  Jorgen Christiansen An integrated CMOS 0.15 ns digital timing generator for TDC's and clock distribution systems , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium - NSS'94.