A Sub-Nanosecond Time-to-Voltage Converter and Analog Memory

A time-to-voltage converter (TVC) has been designed which measures time intervals over a linear range of 6.5 to 27 ns with a resolution of 0.3 ns. The measurement is stored as an analog voltage on a capacitor. An additional feature of the circuit is the implementation of an analog memory which allows a series of time-to-voltage conversions to be performed in rapid succession. Close matching between the memory channels allow a total accuracy of 0.4 ns. the monolithic TVC/Analog Memory Memory chips contains eight memory channels and has a total area of 2300 mil sup 2. This circuit has direct applications for high-luminosity collider detectors and clock synchronization circuits. Fabrication was done with the MOSIS 1.6 mu n-well double-metal single-polysilicon CMOS process.