On-the-fly and sub-gate-delay resolution TDC based on self-timed ring: A proof of concept

Assia El Hadbi (1) , Abdelkarim Cherkaoui (1) , Oussama Elissati (2) , Jean Simatic (1) , Laurent Fesquet (1)

1 TIMA - Techniques de l'Informatique et de la Microélectronique pour l'Architecture des systèmes intégrés
2 STRS Laboratory

A new fully digital high resolution time-to-digital converter (TDC) based on a self-timed ring oscillator (STR) is presented. The proposed TDC can virtually achieve as fine as desired time resolution by simply increasing its number of stages thanks to the STR unique features. Moreover, the proposed technique allows on-the-fly time measurement on fast non-periodic signals. The TDC has been implemented using 28 nm FDSOI technology to provide a proof of concept of the proposed method. Simulation results point out the advantage of this TDC in terms of measurement accuracy.

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Assia El Hadbi, Abdelkarim Cherkaoui, Oussama Elissati, Jean Simatic, Laurent Fesquet. On-the-fly and sub-gate-delay resolution TDC based on self-timed ring: A proof of concept. 15th IEEE International New Circuits and Systems Conference (NEWCAS), Jun 2017, Strasbourg, France. pp.305-308, ⟨10.1109/NEWCAS.2017.8010166⟩. ⟨hal-01627367⟩