Single-Photon Avalanche Diode with Enhanced NIR-Sensitivity for Automotive LIDAR Systems.

A single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) with enhanced near-infrared (NIR) sensitivity has been developed, based on 0.18 µm CMOS technology, for use in future automotive light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems. The newly proposed SPAD operating in Geiger mode achieves a high NIR photon detection efficiency (PDE) without compromising the fill factor (FF) and a low breakdown voltage of approximately 20.5 V. These properties are obtained by employing two custom layers that are designed to provide a full-depletion layer with a high electric field profile. Experimental evaluation of the proposed SPAD reveals an FF of 33.1% and a PDE of 19.4% at 870 nm, which is the laser wavelength of our LIDAR system. The dark count rate (DCR) measurements shows that DCR levels of the proposed SPAD have a small effect on the ranging performance, even if the worst DCR (12.7 kcps) SPAD among the test samples is used. Furthermore, with an eye toward vehicle installations, the DCR is measured over a wide temperature range of 25-132 °C. The ranging experiment demonstrates that target distances are successfully measured in the distance range of 50-180 cm.

Design and characterization of a 256 x 64-pixel single-photon imager in CMOS for a MEMS-based laser scanning time-of-flight sensor.

We introduce an optical time-of-flight image sensor taking advantage of a MEMS-based laser scanning device. Unlike previous approaches, our concept benefits from the high timing resolution and the digital signal flexibility of single-photon pixels in CMOS to allow for a nearly ideal cooperation between the image sensor and the scanning device. This technique enables a high signal-to-background light ratio to be obtained, while simultaneously relaxing the constraint on size of the MEMS mirror. These conditions are critical for devising practical and low-cost depth sensors intended to operate in uncontrolled environments, such as outdoors. A proof-of-concept prototype capable of operating in real-time was implemented. This paper focuses on the design and characterization of a 256 x 64-pixel image sensor, which also comprises an event-driven readout circuit, an array of 64 row-level high-throughput time-to-digital converters, and a 16 Gbit/s global readout circuit. Quantitative evaluation of the sensor under 2 klux of background light revealed a repeatability error of 13.5 cm throughout the distance range of 20 meters.