A 0.5ps 1.4mW 50MS/s Nyquist bandwidth time amplifier based two-step flash-ΔΣ time-to-digital converter

Abstract

We propose a 50-MS/s two-step flash-ΔΣ time-to-digital converter (TDC) using stable time amplifiers (TAs). The TDC demonstrates low-levels of shaped quantization noise. The system is simulated in 40-nm CMOS and consumes 1.3 mA from a 1.1 V supply. The bandwidth is broadened to Nyquist rate. At frequencies below 25 MHz, the integrated TDC error is as low as 143 fsrms, which is equal to an equivalent TDC resolution of 0.5 ps.