Time to Digital Converters

Image of time to digital converter clock source Currently two different solutions for PC-based precision time measurements are available.

The dedicated time to digital converter HPTDC8-PCI is ideal for applications requiring high single shot resolution on many channels, such as the readout of delay line detectors.

The Ndigo5G is a high speed ADC digitizer with hardware preprocessing for pulse signals. It samples signals by an analog to digital converter (ADC) with 10 bits resolution at 5Gsps. Processing this data provides even higher time resolutions and can provide amplitude information in addition to the time stamps. It is designed to be used in time of flight mass spectrometers, LIDAR and other TOF applications with low channel count.

Both product lines can also be used as frequency counter, time interval analyzer (TIA) and for single photon counting.

Facts HPTDC Ndigo5G
Channels 8 high resolution NIM AC coupled
1 low resolution NIM AC coupled
12 low resolution 3.3VCMOS DC coupled
 4 high res AC coupled ADC
1 high res AC coupled TDC
1 low res gating channel
Connectors 10x LEMO 00
1x 26 pin ribbon
 6x LEMO 00
Bin Size 25ps highres
12.8ns lowres		 10ps highres
3.2ns lowres
Double Pulse Resolution <5ns typical <1ns
Multihit unlimited unlimited
Dead Time Between Events none none
Readout Rate 4MHits/s 6MHits/s
Range 419µs with trigger logic
2h untriggered (extendable)		 106d
Common start/stop yes/yes yes/yes
Number of boards that can be event- synchronized 3 8
PCI 5V, 32-bit, 33MHz, bus master, PCI 2.2
 PCIe 4x, bus master
Time Base 1pmm on board or external 78.125MHz clock 50ppb on board or external 10MHz clock
Additional features On board calibration data storage
adjustable trigger windows
overlapping events possible
easy to use windows C++ API
in system firmware update		 On board calibration data storage
adjustable trigger windows
overlapping events possible
easy to use windows C++ API
in system firmware update