Time-to-digital converter
In electronic instrumentation and signal processing, a time-to-digital converter (TDC) is a device for recognizing events and providing a digital representation of the time they occurred. For example, a TDC might output the time of arrival for each incoming pulse. Some applications wish to measure the time interval between two events rather than some notion of an absolute time. In electronics time-to-digital converters (TDCs) or time digitizers are devices commonly used to measure a time interval and convert it into digital (binary) output. In some cases TDCs are also called time counters (TCs). TDCs are used to determine the time interval between two signal pulses (known as start and stop pulse). Measurement is started and stopped when the rising or falling edge of a signal pulse crosses a set threshold. This pattern is seen in many physical experiments, like time-of-flight and lifetime measurements in atomic and high energy physics, experiments that involve laser ranging and electronic research involving the testing of integrated circuits and high-speed data transfer. (Wikipedia).
