{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,3]],"date-time":"2026-04-03T10:43:20Z","timestamp":1775213000898,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,11,17]],"date-time":"2018-11-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1542412800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003246","name":"Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["12807"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["12807"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003246","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Per-pixel time-to-digital converter (TDC) architectures have been exploited by single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) sensors to achieve high photon throughput, but at the expense of fill factor, pixel pitch and readout efficiency. In contrast, TDC sharing architecture usually features high fill factor at small pixel pitch and energy efficient event-driven readout. While the photon throughput is not necessarily lower than that of per-pixel TDC architectures, since the throughput is not only decided by the TDC number but also the readout bandwidth. In this paper, a SPAD sensor with 32 \u00d7 32 pixels fabricated with a 180 nm CMOS image sensor technology is presented, where dynamically reallocating TDCs were implemented to achieve the same photon throughput as that of per-pixel TDCs. Each 4 TDCs are shared by 32 pixels via a collision detection bus, which enables a fill factor of 28% with a pixel pitch of 28.5 \u03bcm. The TDCs were characterized, obtaining the peak-to-peak differential and integral non-linearity of \u22120.07\/+0.08 LSB and \u22120.38\/+0.75 LSB, respectively. The sensor was demonstrated in a scanning light-detection-and-ranging (LiDAR) system equipped with an ultra-low power laser, achieving depth imaging up to 10 m at 6 frames\/s with a resolution of 64 \u00d7 64 with 50 lux background light.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s18114016","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,11,22]],"date-time":"2018-11-22T09:18:25Z","timestamp":1542878305000},"page":"4016","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":61,"title":["A CMOS SPAD Imager with Collision Detection and 128 Dynamically Reallocating TDCs for Single-Photon Counting and 3D Time-of-Flight Imaging"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5069-0124","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chao","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Quantum and Computer Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628CD Delft, The Netherlands"}]},{"given":"Scott","family":"Lindner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, University of Zurich, R\u00e4mistrasse 71, 8006 Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland"},{"name":"Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory, \u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Route Cantonale, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6155-6895","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ivan","family":"Antolovic","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory, \u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Route Cantonale, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland"}]},{"given":"Martin","family":"Wolf","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, University of Zurich, R\u00e4mistrasse 71, 8006 Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland"}]},{"given":"Edoardo","family":"Charbon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory, \u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Route Cantonale, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland"},{"name":"Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, 2628CJ Delft, The Netherlands"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,11,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"444","DOI":"10.1109\/JSSC.2004.841017","article-title":"A 375 \u00d7 365 high-speed 3-D range-finding image sensor using row-parallel search architecture and multisampling technique","volume":"40","author":"Oike","year":"2005","journal-title":"IEEE J. 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