- Patent Title: Systems and methods for TIA base current detection and compensation
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Application No.: US16181523Application Date: 2018-11-06
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Publication No.: US11082010B2Publication Date: 2021-08-03
- Inventor: Roger Pinto , Pravin Kumar Venkatesan
- Applicant: Velodyne LiDAR, Inc.
- Applicant Address: US CA San Jose
- Assignee: Velodyne LiDAR, Inc.
- Current Assignee: Velodyne LiDAR, Inc.
- Current Assignee Address: US CA San Jose
- Agency: Goodwin Procter LLP
- Main IPC: H03F3/08
- IPC: H03F3/08 ; H03F1/30 ; H03G3/00 ; H03F3/343 ; H03G3/30 ; H03M1/74

Abstract:
Described herein are systems and methods that can adjust the performance of a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) in order to compensate for changing environmental and/or manufacturing conditions. In some embodiments, the changing environmental and/or manufacturing conditions may cause a reduction in beta of a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in the TIA. A low beta may result in a high base current for the BJT causing the output voltage of the TIA to be formatted as an unusable signal output. To compensate for the low beta, the TIA generates an intermediate signal voltage, based on the base current and beta that is compared with the PN junction bias voltage on another BJT. Based on the comparison, the state of a digital state machine may be incremented, and a threshold base current is determined. This threshold base current may decide whether to compensate the operation of the TIA, or discard the chip.
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