Analysis of Temperature induced Effects on the Quantization Jitter of Time-to-Digital Converters

Delay-line-based time-to-digital converters (TDCs) use short delay elements to measure the arrival time of elec-trical pulses, achieving picosecond-scale resolution. When stable environmental conditions cannot be ensured, environmental vari-ations change the delay element widths and degrade precision.
This work analyzes the impact of temperature changes on TDC performance. First, we provide a mathematical analysis of the effect of bin width changes on the quantization jitter. Second, we measure and model the relationship between bin width and temperature. Third, we combine the width model with the theo-retical analysis to quantify the link between temperature changes and quantization jitter. Finally, we present an experiment that quantifies the performance degradation caused by temperature variation. We demonstrate how to isolate the temperature effect and compare experimental results with theory. Our methodology can guide optimization of TDC performance under temperature variation.