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CMOS Time-to-Digital Converters for Biomedical Imaging Applications
IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering
|June 24, 2021
Summary
Time-to-digital converters (TDCs) enable precise event timestamping for advanced biomedical imaging. Integrating TDCs with single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) in CMOS technology offers high-performance, low-cost time-resolved sensors for applications like digital silicon photomultipliers.
Area of Science:
- Mixed-signal circuit design
- Biomedical imaging technologies
- Photon detection and timing
Background:
- Time-to-digital converters (TDCs) offer sub-gate delay resolution for high-precision event timestamping.
- Advancements in CMOS technology enable integration of TDCs with single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs).
- This integration forms digital silicon photomultipliers (dSiPMs) and SPAD imagers for time-resolved sensing.
Approach:
- Overview of fundamental TDC principles and analysis of state-of-the-art TDCs.
- Discussion on the integration of TDCs into dSiPMs and SPAD imagers.
- Analysis of current results and applications of TDCs in biomedical imaging.
Key Points:
- Time-resolved SPAD-based sensors achieve picosecond resolution for single-photon detection.
- These sensors leverage time-of-flight (ToF) information for high-quality biological image reconstruction.
- CMOS integration ensures high performance and cost-effectiveness.
Conclusions:
- TDCs are crucial for advanced biomedical imaging, particularly in SPAD-based sensors.
- The integration of TDCs with SPADs in CMOS technology drives innovation in dSiPMs and SPAD imagers.
- Further research on TDCs is needed to address challenges in biomedical imaging applications.
