Title :
A metastability-independent time-to-voltage converter
Author :
An, Dong ; Roberts, Gordon W.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., McGill Univ., Montreal, QC
Abstract :
Time-to-voltage converters (TVCs) exploit a digital circuit to convert the time difference between the edges of two digital signals into a single digital pulse whose pulse width is equal to this time difference. This pulse is then used as the control signal that controls the charging duration of a current source-capacitor combination. In all previous TVC designs, the digital circuit consists of a chain of registers, which has a potential metastability hazard. This paper proposes a new architecture of the digital circuit which is independent of this hazard. The circuit was designed in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS process and verified on a Teradyne FLEX tester at a resolution of 39.0625 ps. Experimental results also reveal that the output of the digital circuit is independent of the metastability effect.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; convertors; digital circuits; integrated circuit design; CMOS process; digital circuit; digital pulse; digital signal; metastability-independent time-to-voltage converter; size 0.18 mum; Circuit testing; Clocks; Digital circuits; Hazards; Metastasis; Pulse circuits; Pulse width modulation converters; Registers; Signal resolution; Timing;
Conference_Titel :
Circuits and Systems, 2008. ISCAS 2008. IEEE International Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Seattle, WA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1683-7
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1684-4
DOI :
10.1109/ISCAS.2008.4541913
