The current generation of continuous wave Time-of-Flight (cwTOF) sensors requires frequency modulated illumination of a full image scene. Particularly in automotive applications which are calling for large field of views and/or larger distances, this approach is clearly limited by the available illumination power and the eye-safety aspect, despite the use of high sensitivity detectors.

Therefore the scanning of the scene with pulsed emitters is required for achieving the needed field of view and distance for ADAS (LiDAR), so called pTOF sensor.