A 26.0mW 30fps 400x300-pixel SWIR Ge-SPAD dToF Range Sensor with Programmable Macro-Pixels and Integrated Histogram Processing for Low-Power AR/VR Applications

📋 论文概要

本文提出了一种基于锗单光子雪崩二极管（Ge-SPAD）的短波红外/近红外直接飞行时间距离传感器，通过可编程宏像素分配和集成直方图处理，实现了26mW超低功耗下的30fps 400×300像素成像，解决了传统dToF传感器功耗高、灵活性差的问题。

💡 主要创新点

• 提出可编程宏像素分配方案，允许灵活组合SPAD单元（如3×3）以平衡分辨率与功耗，仅在需要时激活传感器区域。
• 集成高速多事件时间数字转换器（TDC）和最多100个并行直方图处理单元，支持自动曝光控制，有效抑制暗计数率（DCR）噪声。
• 整体功耗仅26mW（500个3×3宏像素@30fps），实现了极低功耗的SWIR dToF测距。

🏷 关键词

📄 原文摘要

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Europe, Trento, Italy, 2Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Atsugi, Japan 1 Abstract This paper presents a 400×300-pixel Ge-SPAD SWIR/NIR sensor enabling very-low-power operation: the flexible macropixel allocation scheme and high-rate multievent time-to-digital converters, combined with up to 100 simultaneous histograms having autoexposure control allows to turn on the sensor only when and where needed, with resilience to DCR. The sensor power consumption is 26mW when operating 500 macropixels of 3×3 SPAD at 30fps. Direct time-of-flight (dTOF) range sensors have reached maturity in the last years, thanks to high-performing and low-noise SPADs while 3D-stacking technology has enabled complex on-chip processing [1-17]. Still, rejection of ambient light remains a challenge, and for wearables such as augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) devices, power consumption of dTOF sensors in the hundreds-mW range is one order of magnitude more

👥 作者与机构

Matteo Perenzoni1, Koichi Okamoto1,2, Fabrizio De Nisi1, Daniele Perenzoni1, Ji Yong Jeong1, Yu Zou1, Hanning Mai1, Gabriele Quarta1,

Francesco Paolo Mattioli Della Rocca1, Yusuke Okamura1,2, Davide Marani1, Michele Brian1, Daniele Giorgetti1, Soichi Ochiai2, Keiji Tatani2, David Stoppa1