A Study on the Effect of Temperature Variations on FPGA-Based Multi-Channel Time-to-Digital Converters.

Area of Science:

• Digital Electronics
• Embedded Systems Engineering
• Instrumentation and Measurement

Background:

• Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are increasingly used in high-precision timing applications.
• Time-to-digital converters (TDCs) are critical components for measuring time intervals with high resolution.
• Environmental factors, particularly temperature, can significantly impact the performance of electronic systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of ambient temperature variations on FPGA-based tapped delay line (TDL) TDC systems.
• To compare the thermal performance and power consumption of two different FPGA devices (Xilinx Artix-7 and Microsemi ProASIC3L).
• To provide data for optimizing FPGA-TDC designs for reliable operation across a wide temperature range.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a laboratory thermal chamber to expose TDL-TDC systems to temperatures ranging from -75 to 80 °C.
• Employed two distinct FPGA devices: Xilinx Artix-7 and Microsemi ProASIC3L.
• Measured root mean square (RMS) resolution and on-chip power consumption under various thermal conditions.

Main Results:

• The ProASIC3L device exhibited better thermal stability and lower power consumption (1.997 mW) than the Artix-7 (0.968 W).
• Achieved RMS resolutions of 24.7 picoseconds for Artix-7 and 554.59 picoseconds for ProASIC3L.
• Quantified the temperature sensitivity of both FPGA devices.

Conclusions:

• The ProASIC3L FPGA offers superior thermal stability and power efficiency for TDC applications compared to the Artix-7.
• Understanding FPGA temperature sensitivity is essential for designing robust and accurate TDCs.
• These findings aid in the selection and optimization of FPGAs for precision timing in diverse environmental conditions.