An Ultrafast Active Quenching Active Reset Circuit with 50% SPAD Afterpulsing Reduction in a 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS Technology Using Body Biasing Technique

Abstract

An ultrafast Active Quenching—Active Reset (AQAR) circuit is presented for the afterpulsing reduction in a Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD). The proposed circuit is designed in a 28 nm Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FD-SOI) CMOS technology. By exploiting the body biasing technique, the avalanche is detected very quickly and, consequently, is quenched very fast. The fast quenching decreases the avalanche charges, therefore resulting in the afterpulsing reduction. Both post-layout and experimental results are presented and are highly in accordance with each other. It is shown that the proposed AQAR circuit is able to detect the avalanche in less than 40 ps and reduce the avalanche charge and the afterpulsing up to 50%.

Keywords

• afterpulsing
• avalanche charge
• active quenching
• avalanche detection
• inverter
• body biasing