This paper describes the design and characterization of a 64-pixel array exploiting the high sensitivity offered by Single Photon Avalanche Diodes, fabricated in a conventional high-voltage 0.8um CMOS technology, and aimed at three dimensional measurements using the Time-Of-Flight technique. The detection of the incident light signals is performed using a photodiode biased above its breakdown voltage so that an extremely high sensitivity can be achieved exploiting the intrinsic multiplication effect of the avalanche phenomenon. A single photon avalanche diode and dedicated read-out electronics for the arrival-time estimation of incident light pulses have been implemented in a 38x180-um2 pixel. To increase the distance measurement resolution a multiple pulse measurement is used, extracting the mean value of the light pulse arrival-time directly in each pixel; this innovative approach dramatically reduces the dead-time of the pixel read-out, allowing a high frame rate imaging to be achieved. The sensor array provides a range map from 2m to 5m with a precision better than ±0.75% without any external averaging operation
A Single-Photon-Avalanche-Diode 3D Imager
Stoppa, David;Pancheri, Lucio;Scandiuzzo, Mauro;Malfatti, Mattia;Pedretti, Gianmaria;Gonzo, Lorenzo
2005-01-01
Abstract
This paper describes the design and characterization of a 64-pixel array exploiting the high sensitivity offered by Single Photon Avalanche Diodes, fabricated in a conventional high-voltage 0.8um CMOS technology, and aimed at three dimensional measurements using the Time-Of-Flight technique. The detection of the incident light signals is performed using a photodiode biased above its breakdown voltage so that an extremely high sensitivity can be achieved exploiting the intrinsic multiplication effect of the avalanche phenomenon. A single photon avalanche diode and dedicated read-out electronics for the arrival-time estimation of incident light pulses have been implemented in a 38x180-um2 pixel. To increase the distance measurement resolution a multiple pulse measurement is used, extracting the mean value of the light pulse arrival-time directly in each pixel; this innovative approach dramatically reduces the dead-time of the pixel read-out, allowing a high frame rate imaging to be achieved. The sensor array provides a range map from 2m to 5m with a precision better than ±0.75% without any external averaging operationI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
