Integrated Receiver Including Both Receiver Channel and TDC for a Pulsed Time-of-Flight Laser Rangefinder With cm-Level Accuracy

An integrated receiver that includes both the time-to-digital converter (TDC) and the receiver channel and is intended for a pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinder with a measurement range of approximately 10 in has been designed and fabricated in a standard 0.13 mu m CMOS process. The receiver operates by detecting the current pulse of an optical detector and producing a stop timing mark for the TDC by means of a leading edge timing discriminator. The TDC is used to measure the actual time interval between the start and stop pulses and the slew-rate of the stop pulse, to compensate for a walk error produced in the discriminator. The single-shot precision of the whole receiver is 250 ps for a minimum detectable signal, and its accuracy and power consumption are +/- 37 ps with compensation within a dynamic range of at least 1:10,000 and less than 45 mW, respectively. The size of the die is 1300 mu m x 1300 mu m including pads.