This article presents a current mode transimpedance amplifier (TIA) implemented in a standard 65-nm CMOS technology for the applications of elder-care home monitoring LiDAR sensors. Particularly, a novel mirrored current-conveyor (MCC) input configuration is proposed to lower the input impedance, thus achieving a wide bandwidth. This MCC-TIA can alleviate severe pulse spreading issue for near-range detection, enabling effective narrow-pulse recovery. Also, a feedforward control-voltage generator is newly suggested to realize an automatic gain-control within a single pulse-width duration. Measured results demonstrate the variable transimpedance gain of 59∼77 dB to accommodate the incoming input currents of 18 μA pp ∼ 2.24 mA pp that corresponds to the feasible detection range of 0.5∼5.3 meters in an elder's home. The bandwidth of 83 MHz∼2.6 GHz is measured with the minimum noise current spectral density of 16.8 pA/sqrt(Hz). The chip dissipates 40 mW in total, and occupies the area of 1.0 mm 2 , including I/O pads.

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This paper introduces an indoor-monitoring LiDAR sensor for patients with Alzheimer disease residing in long-term care facilities (LTCFs), and this sensor exploits an optoelectronic analog front-end (AFE) to detect light signals from targets by utilizing on-chip avalanche photodiodes (APDs) realized in a 180 nm CMOS process and a neural processing unit (NPU) used for motion detection and decisions, especially for incidents of falls occurring in LTCFs. The AFE consists of an on-chip CMOS P+/N-well APD, a linear-mode transimpedance amplifier, a post-amplifier, and a time-to-digital converter, whereas the NPU exploits network sparsity and approximate processing elements for low-power operation. This work provides a potential solution of low-cost, low-power, indoor-monitoring LiDAR sensors for patients with Alzheimer disease in LTCFs.

This paper presents a test methodology to facilitate the measuring processes of LiDAR receiver ICs by avoiding the inherent walk error issue. In a typical LiDAR system, a costly laser diode driver emits narrow light pulses with fast rising edges, and the reflected pulses from targets enter an optical detector followed by an analog front-end (AFE) circuit. Then, the received signals pass through the cascaded amplifiers down to the time-to-digital converter (TDC) that can estimate the detection range. However, this relatively long signal journey leads to the significant decline of rising-edge slopes and the output pulse spreading, thus producing inherent walk errors in LiDAR receiver ICs. Compensation methods requiring complex algorithms and extra chip area have frequently been exploited to lessen the walk errors. In this paper, however, a simpler and lower-cost methodology is proposed to test LiDAR receiver ICs by employing a high-speed buffer and variable delay cells right before the TDC. With these circuits, both START and STOP pulses show very similar pulse shapes, thus effectively avoiding the walk error issue. Additionally, the time interval between two pulses is easily determined by varying the number of the delay cells. Test chips of the proposed receiver IC implemented in a 180-nm CMOS process successfully demonstrate easier and more accurate measurement results.