A 22-bit 110ps time-interpolated Time-to-Digital Converter

Abstract

This paper presents a 22-bit time-interpolated Timeto-Digital Converter (TDC) with 110ps temporal resolution for biochemical sensing applications, which utilize time-resolve luminescence imaging technique. The TDC achieves wide dynamic range operation by incorporating a hybrid architecture that combines a 14-bit digital counter based coarse TDC and an 8-bit Voltage-Controlled Delay Line (VCDL) based fine TDC. We have proposed and implemented a novel readout algorithm for VCDL operation that achieves high throughput temporal measurement. A prototype chip has been fabricated in a 65nm standard CMOS process and it consumes 2.4mA power from a 1.2V supply. The measurement results on the fabricated TDC demonstrates a Differential Nonlinearity (DNL) of 0.49LSB and an Integral Nonlinearity (INL) or 1.67LSB (1LSB=110ps). The implemented TDC architecture and its fast readout circuit can be readily used in a variety of time-resolved biomedical sensing or high-speed imaging applications that require both wide dynamic range performance and high frame rate implementations.

A Multichannel and Compact Time to Digital Converter for Time of Flight Positron Emission Tomography

“…This paper presents an innovative TDC architecture for TOF measurement to be used in the hybrid TOF PET/MRI prototype module developed within the 4DMPET project [25], [26]. A classical coarse-fine approach based on a counter and a delay locked loop (DLL) is exploited [27]- [30] and designed adopting a novel fully synchronous pipeline architecture. Dynamic logic is employed to take full advantage of a deep submicrometer technology in terms of working frequency.…”