A CMOS optoelectronic receiver IC with an on-chip avalanche photodiode for home-monitoring LiDAR sensors

This paper presents an optoelectronic receiver (Rx) IC with an on-chip avalanche photo-diode (APD) realized in a 0.18-μm CMOS process for the applications of home-monitoring light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors, where the on-chip CMOS P⁺/N-well APD was implemented to avoid the unwanted signal distortion from bondwires and electro-static discharge (ESD) protec-tion diodes. Various circuit techniques are exploited in this work, such as the feedforward transim-pedance amplifier for high gain, and a limiting amplifier with negative impedance compensation for wide bandwidth. Measured results demonstrate 93.4-dBΩ transimpedance gain, 790-MHz band-width, 12-pA/√Hz noise current spectral density, 6.74-μApp minimum detectable signal that corre-sponds to the maximum detection range of 10 m, and 56.5-mW power dissipation from a 1.8-V supply. This optoelectronic Rx IC provides a potential for a low-cost low-power solution in the applications of home-monitoring LiDAR sensors.