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A Low-Power Optoelectronic Receiver IC for Short-Range LiDAR Sensors in 180 nm CMOS.

Authors :
Choi, Shinhae
Chon, Yeojin
Park, Sung Min
Source :
Micromachines; Sep2024, Vol. 15 Issue 9, p1066, 11p
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

This paper presents a novel power-efficient topology for receivers in short-range LiDAR sensors. Conventionally, LiDAR sensors exploit complex time-to-digital converters (TDCs) for time-of-flight (ToF) distance measurements, thereby frequently leading to intricate circuit designs and persistent walk error issues. However, this work features a fully differential trans-impedance amplifier with on-chip avalanche photodiodes as optical detectors so that the need of the following post-amplifiers and output buffers can be eliminated, thus considerably reducing power consumption. Also, the combination of amplitude-to-voltage (A2V) and time-to-voltage (T2V) converters are exploited to replace the complicated TDC circuit. The A2V converter efficiently processes weak input photocurrents ranging from 1 to 50 μA<subscript>pp</subscript> which corresponds to a maximum distance of 22.8 m, while the T2V converter handles relatively larger photocurrents from 40 μA<subscript>pp</subscript> to 5.8 mA<subscript>pp</subscript> for distances as short as 30 cm. The post-layout simulations confirm that the proposed LiDAR receiver can detect optical pulses over the range of 0.3 to 22.8 m with a low power dissipation of 10 mW from a single 1.8 V supply. This topology offers significant improvements in simplifying the receiver design and reducing the power consumption, providing a more efficient and accurate solution that is highly suitable for short-range LiDAR sensor applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2072666X
Volume :
15
Issue :
9
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Micromachines
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
180008533
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15091066