A Fully Integrated Pulsed-Laser Time-Of-Flight Measurement System With 12ps Single-Shot Precision

A monolithic pulsed time-of-flight measurement system is presented in this paper. The circuit consists of an optical receiver front-end and time-to-digital converter. Received pulse amplitude detectors are also included to correct measurement for walk error. The IC is fabricated in a 0.18-mu m BiCMOS process. The receiver front-end achieves a 23GHz bandwidth and NF lower than 5dB. The system shows a single-shot precision of 12ps and a measurement range of 188 mu s. The measurement rate can be as high as 700kHz. The power consumption is 148mA from a 3.5V supply for analog and (ECL)-C-2 circuitry, and a 1.8V supply for CMOS circuitry.