1. A 16-Channel Analog CMOS SiPM With On-Chip Front-End for D-ToF LiDAR.
- Author
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Liu, Maliang, Liu, Bingzheng, Hu, Jin, Li, Dong, Ma, Jiaji, Chu, Zekun, Ma, Rui, and Zhu, Zhangming
- Subjects
- *
LIDAR , *TIME-digital conversion , *SCANNING systems , *DIGITAL-to-analog converters , *OPTICAL radar - Abstract
This article presents a 16-channel analog silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) with on-chip front-end for direct time-of-flight (D-ToF) LiDAR applications. The proposed receiver is mainly composed of 16-channel SiPM, variable gain amplifier (VGA) and time-to-digital converter (TDC). Each SiPM channel consists of 256 microcells, and their outputs are connected to a common output terminal in parallel. A novel active quenching circuit is adopted to reduce the long exponential tail in conventional SiPM and enable the capability of multi-echo detection. Current steering circuits are adopted within microcells to make the output current of SiPM immune to SPAD gain variations. The receiver was fabricated in 180-nm HV CMOS technology and integrated into the 16-line LiDAR prototype with optical components. Measurement results show that the sensor is capable of 20 m range imaging with 3 cm accuracy under 40 klux background light conditions. With the mechanical scanning system, a high-resolution image ($240\times16$) can be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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