A 250-ps time-resolution CMOS multihit time-to-digital converter for nuclear physics experiments

Author

Bigongiari, F. ; Roncella, R. ; Saletti, R. ; Terreni, P.

Author_Institution

Ist. di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Pisa Univ., Italy

Volume

46

Issue

2

fYear

1999

fDate

4/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

73

Lastpage

77

Abstract

This paper presents a CMOS realization of a time-to-digital converter (TDC) for nuclear physics experiments. An innovative and robust architecture, already used in a previous TDC version with 1 ns of bin size, has been adopted and improved with the aim to achieve a 500-ps bin size. The TDC has eight input channels plus a common channel. It can store up to 32 events per channel with a double-hit resolution of 8 ns. It can realize common-start and common-stop operations. It has 4.2 ms of input range with a 125-MHz system clock. The chip uses an asynchronous interpolator system based on a delay-locked line to increase the coarse resolution. It has been fabricated in a double-metal single poly n-well, 1-μm CMOS process with an area of about 77 mm². Measurements show that the TDC has better performance compared to similar devices, especially the time resolution below 250 ps

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; analogue-digital conversion; application specific integrated circuits; nuclear electronics; 1 mum; 1 ns; 125 MHz; 250 ps; 4.2 ms; 500 ps; CMOS multihit time-to-digital converter; TDC; asynchronous interpolator system; bin size; common-start; common-stop; double-hit resolution; double-metal single poly n-well CMOS process; nuclear physics experiments; CMOS process; CMOS technology; Clocks; Delay lines; Integrated circuit measurements; Nuclear physics; Particle measurements; Robustness; Signal resolution; Time measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.757192

Filename

757192