A Low-Resources TDC for Multi-Channel Direct ToF Readout Based on a 28-nm FPGA

In this paper, we present a proposed field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based time-to-digital converter (TDC) architecture to achieve high performance with low usage of resources. This TDC can be employed for multi-channel direct Time-of-Flight (ToF) applications. The proposed architecture consist...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Parsakordasiabi, Mojtaba, Vornicu, Ion, Rodríguez Vázquez, Ángel Benito, Carmona Galán, Ricardo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/111813
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/111813
https://doi.org/10.3390/s21010308
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Field programmable gate array (FPGA)
Tapped-delay-line (TDL)
Thermometer-to-binary (T2B) encoder
Multichannel TDCs
Time-to-digital converter (TDC)
Time-of-flight (ToF)
Singlephoton avalanche diode (SPAD)
Descripción
Sumario:In this paper, we present a proposed field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based time-to-digital converter (TDC) architecture to achieve high performance with low usage of resources. This TDC can be employed for multi-channel direct Time-of-Flight (ToF) applications. The proposed architecture consists of a synchronizing input stage, a tuned tapped delay line (TDL), a combinatory encoder of ones and zeros counters, and an online calibration stage. The experimental results of the TDC in an Artix-7 FPGA show a differential non-linearity (DNL) in the range of [−0.953, 1.185] LSB, and an integral non-linearity (INL) within [−2.750, 1.238] LSB. The measured LSB size and precision are 22.2 ps and 26.04 ps, respectively. Moreover, the proposed architecture requires low FPGA resources.