Course 063 Optical Sensors: Photodetector, Low Noise Interfacing, Signal Conditioning and ASIC Integration

Dr. Farzad Parsaie, founder of SAND Microsystems GmbH, Switzerland is teaching this 2-day course in Optical Sensors.

Optical Sensors have got a broad range of applications from automotive sensing for autonomous driving (AD) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to many other areas such as industrial sensing and scanning, gas sensing, 3D Imaging. Optical sensors are also used in robots, drones, medicine, aerospace and for optical communication systems. Many test and measurement systems include optical sensors to get higher accuracy.

This course deals with optical sensors that need to be very sensitive and/or high-speed. It starts from the physics of optical detectors and properties of light to the interaction between photons with the semiconductor material. It handles important items like noise, sensitivity and switching speed by analyzing major factors determining them. In the second part different topologies for electronic interfacing and signal conditioning to the Analog/Time to Digital Conversion (ADC/TDC) will be introduced and covered. Challenges and suitable Technologies for integration in Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) will be introduced to reduce size and cost.