Description

This design demonstrates a high-speed optical front-end with a Time of Flight (ToF) distance measurement circuit using a fiber-optic transmission medium: which can be adapted to any type of ToF measurement such as through free space. This design features an industry-leading 2.5-V output linear transimpedance front-end with 10 kΩ of gain and over 200-MHz bandwidth for high-accuracy measurements. The received signal is digitized using the TDC7201 converter operating in short time mode: which improves the measurement accuracy of the device from 12 ns to 250 ps: further reinforcing the high accuracy nature of the design. The measurement is controlled using the MSP430 microcontroller on a LaunchPad™ development kit for easy plug and play compatibility. Overall: the design achieves higher speed and accuracy: reduces complexity and lowers power compared to fully digitized designs that require high-speed ADCs and FPGAs.