Silicon photomultiplier readout circuitry
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorsGordian Prescher, Thomas Frach
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Abstract
A photon-counting Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode intensity imaging array includes an array of pixels (200), each having an avalanche photodiode (250). A pixel senses an avalanche event and stores, in response to the sensed avalanche event, a single bit digital value therein. An array of accumulators (320) are provided such that each accumulator is associated with a pixel. A row decoder circuit (310) addresses a pixel row within the array of pixels. A bit sensing circuit (300) converts a precharged capacitance into a digital value during read operations.
Claims25
An apparatus comprising:
- a first photodetector cell including:
- a first avalanche photodiode;
- a first circuit that senses an avalanche of the first photodiode and stores a first 1-bit digital value indicative of the sensed avalanche;
- a second photodetector cell including:
- a second avalanche photodiode;
- a second circuit that senses an avalanche of the second photodiode and stores a second 1-bit digital value indicative of the sensed avalanche.
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A method comprising:
- in a plurality of photodetector cells of a photodetector pixel:
- determining if an avalanche photodiode of the cell produces a signal indicative of an avalanche;
- storing a result of the determination as a 1-bit digital value in a circuit of the cell;
- counting the stored digital values to produce a value indicative of the number of avalanches.
23-30. (canceled)
A photodetector comprising:
- a semiconductor substrate;
- a plurality of photodetector cells fabricated on the substrate, wherein the cells include:
- an avalanche photodiode;
- a six transistor SRAM cell.
32-45. (canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.