A Rad-Hard-by-Design TDC Chip for Today’s and Future LIDARs

The application field of LIDARs is promising, and the technological advances are creating new opportunities in space. This introduces a need for flexible, power efficient and accurate time measurement solutions. At the same time, in the field of earth observation in particular, there is a push to a better viewing granularity for 2-D and 3-D areas, hence smaller pixels and higher data rates, while power consumption and weight of the solution remain critical. Magics Technologies has recently developed an ITAR-free time-to-digital converter chip with 8 ps single-shot precision, in cooperation with ESA, for extreme precision time measurements in space applications, like LIDAR and time tagging. The TDC is rad-hard-by-design and supports zero-dead-zone measurements in the range from 0 ps to 3 s. It also supports a multi-stop mode for capturing up to 5 consecutive STOP pulses. The chip has been validated for its electrical and radiation performance, and it is foreseen to get first flight heritage in 2024.