A survey on FPGA-based high-resolution TDCs

Abstract

Time-to-digital converters based on Nutt method are especially suitable for FPGA implementation. They are able to provide high resolution, range and linearity with low resources usage. The core of this architecture consist in a coarse counter for long range, a fine time interpolator for high resolution and real-time calibration for high linearity. This paper reviews different time interpolation and real-time calibration techniques. Moreover, a comparison of state-of-the-art FPGA-based TDCs is presented as well.