A High Repetition Rate CMOS Driver for High-Energy Sub-ns Laser Pulse Generation in SPAD-Based Time-of-Flight Range Finding

An integrated 0.35-μm HV-CMOS driver has been designed for a gain-switched quantum well laser diode to generate short, energetic (100 ps/~0.5 nJ) optical pulses for a pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser radar, operating on the single-photon detection principle. The driver can produce a current pulse with a peak amplitude of ~2 A, a pulsewidth of 1 ns, and a pulsing rate of 500 kHz. The peak optical power and pulsewidth of the transmitter output with these parameters are 3 W and 100 ps, respectively. A single-shot precision of 2-3 cm is achieved in the TOF measurements of a non-cooperative target at 25 m with a reflectivity of 8% and a receiver aperture of 18 mm using a CMOS SPAD as the receiver.