Abstract: “The time-to-digital converter is a widely used device for measuring pulse width, jitter and timing characteristic of signal. In this paper, we present a cyclic time-to-digital converter based on the pulse-shrinking technique. Through utilizing the Schmitt trigger and design rules, the resolution of pulse-shrinking cell can be precisely adjusted by controlling the high and low threshold voltage of the transition. The proposed time-to-digital converter was implemented by TSMC 0.35μm 3.3V process and the simulation results show the resolution of circuit is very well that less than 20ps. In addition, within 4ns, the differential nonlinearity is less than 0.5LSB with respect to the resolution of 20ps.”

Keywords: time-to-digital converter, pulse-shrinking element, Schmitt Trigge