Eight-Channel 21 ps Precision 10 μs Range Time-to-Digital Converter Module

We present an eight-channel time-to-digital converter (TDC) instrument capable of measuring up to eight independent time intervals, with 21 ps rms precision and less than 1.5% LSB rms differential nonlinearity, over 10 mu s full-scale range and up to 5.5 Mconv/s per channel. The module can also operate the eight channels in average or interleaved mode, i.e., as a single TDC, in order to improve timing performance or conversion rate, respectively. The on-board real-time data processing allows fast data transfer to a remote computer, through a Universal Serial Bus 2.0 interface, and a dedicated software interface handles measurements and plots data. Thanks to excellent timing performance and just 6 W power consumption, the eight-channel TDC module is suitable for advanced cost-effective multichannel time measurements at picosecond level.