Title :
A high-resolution time-to-digital converter implemented in field-programmable-gate-arrays
Author :
Song, Jian ; An, Qi ; Liu, Shubin
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Modern Phys., China Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Hefei
Abstract :
A high-resolution time-to-digital converter (TDC) implemented in a general purpose field-programmable-gate-array (FPGA) is presented. Dedicated carry lines of an FPGA are used as delay cells to perform time interpolation within the system clock period and to realize the fine time measurement. Two Gray-code counters, working on in-phase and out-of-phase system clocks respectively, are designed to get the stable value of the coarse time measurement. The fine time code and the coarse time counter value, along with the channel identifier, are then written into a first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer. Tests have been done to verify the performance of the TDC. The resolution after calibration can reach 50 ps
Keywords :
field programmable gate arrays; nuclear electronics; Gray-code counters; field programmable gate arrays; first-in first-out buffer; time-to-digital converter; Application specific integrated circuits; Clocks; Counting circuits; Delay effects; Delay lines; Field programmable gate arrays; Interpolation; Physics; Testing; Time measurement; Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); code density test; time measurement; time-to-digital converter (TDC);
Journal_Title :
Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TNS.2006.869820
