A FAST FOREGROUND DIGITAL CALIBRATION TECHNIQUE FOR PIPELINED ADC

Digital calibration techniques are widely developed to cancel the non-idealities of the pipelined Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs). This letter presents a fast foreground digital calibration technique based on the analysis of error sources which influence the resolution of pipelined ADCs. This method estimates the gain error of the ADC prototype quickly and calibrates the ADC simultaneously in the operation time. Finally, a 10 bit, 100 Ms/s pipelined ADC is implemented and calibrated. The simulation results show that the digital calibration technique has its efficiency with fewer operation cycles.

基于新型环形放大器的低功耗Pipelined SAR ADC

针对流水线型逐次逼近模数转换器(Pipelined SAR ADC)中残差放大器的核心运放功耗过高,从而严重限制ADC能效上限的问题,本文提出了一种新型的基于CMOS开关的自偏置全差分环形放大器(CMOS Self-biased Fully Differential Ring Amplifier,CSFRA),来替代传统运放。CSFRA通过引入CMOS开关自偏置和全差分结构,同时在非放大时序中关断电路,降低了残差放大器功耗。基于所提CSFRA,配合可降低开关功耗的检测和跳过切换方案,设计了一款12 Bit 10 MS/s的Pipelined SAR ADC。该电路基于MXIC L18B 180 nm CMOS工艺实现,实验结果表明,在10 MS/s的采样率下,该电路的SFDR和SNDR分别为75.3 dB和61.3 dB,功耗仅为944μW,其中CSFRA功耗仅为368μW。

Simulink Behavioral Modeling of a 10-bit Pipelined ADC

The increasing architecture complexity of data converters makes it necessary to use behavioral models to simulate their electrical performance and to determine their relevant data features. For this purpose, a specific data converter simulation environment has been developed which allows designers to perform time-domain behavioral simulations of pipelined analog to digital converters （ADCs）. All the necessary blocks of this specific simulation environment have been implemented using the popular Matlab simulink environment. The purpose of this paper is to present the behavioral models of these blocks taking into account most of the pipelined ADC non-idealities, such as sampling jitter, noise, and operational amplifier parameters （white noise, finite DC gain, finite bandwidth, slew rate, and saturation voltages）. Simulations, using a 10-bit pipelined ADC as a design example, show that in addition to the limits analysis and the electrical features extraction, designers can determine the specifications of the basic blocks in order to meet the given data converter requirements.

A SHA-less 14-bit, 100-MS/s pipelined ADC with comparator offset cancellation in background

A 14-bit 100-MS/s pipelined analog-to-digital converter（ADC） without dedicated front-end sampleand-hold amplifier（SHA） is presented. In addition to elaborate matching of the sampling network in the first stage,a background offset cancellation circuit is proposed in this paper to suppress the offset of the comparators in the first-stage sub-ADC, which ensures the overall offset does not exceed the correction range of the built-in redundant structure. Fabricated in a 0.18- m CMOS technology, the presented ADC occupies a chip area of 12 mm2, and consumes 237 mW from a 1.8-V power supply. Measurement results with a 30.1-MHz input sine wave under a sampling rate of 100 MS/s show that the ADC achieves a 71-d B signal-to-noise and distortion ratio（SNDR）,an 85.4-d B spurious-free dynamic range（SFDR）, a maximum differential nonlinearity（DNL） of 0.22 LSB and a maximum integral nonlinearity（INL） of 1.4 LSB.

A 12-bit,40-Ms/s pipelined ADC with an improved operational amplifier

This paper proposes a 12-bit,40-Ms/s pipelined analog-to-digital converter（ADC） with an improved high-gain and wide-bandwidth operational amplifier（opamp）.Based on the architecture of the proposed ADC,the non-ideal factors of opamps are first analyzed,which have the significant impact on the ADC＇s resolution.Then,the compensation techniques of the ADC＇s opamp are presented to restrain the negative effect introduced by the gainboosting technique and switched-capacitor common-mode-feedback structure.After analysis and optimization,the ADC implemented in a 0.35μm standard CMOS process shows a maximum signal-to-noise distortion ratio of 60.5 dB and a spurious-free dynamic range of 74.5 dB,respectively,at a 40 MHz sample clock with over 2 Vpp input range.

A 10-bit 80-MS/s opamp-sharing pipelined ADC with a switch-embedded dual-input MDAC

A 10-bit 80-MS/s opamp-sharing pipelined ADC is implemented in a 0.18μm CMOS. An opamp- sharing MDAC with a switch-embedded dual-input opamp is proposed to eliminate the non-resetting and successive-stage crosstalk problems observed in the conventional opamp-sharing technique. The ADC achieves a peak SNDR of 60.1 dB （ENOB = 9.69 bits） and a peak SFDR of 76 dB, while maintaining more than 9.6 ENOB for the full Nyquist input bandwidth. The core area of the ADC is 1.1 mm2 and the chip consumes 28 mW with a 1.8 V power supply.

A robust and simple two-mode digital calibration technique for pipelined ADC

This paper presents a two-mode digital calibration technique for pipelined analog-to-digital converters （ADC）.The proposed calibration eliminates the errors of residual difference voltage induced by capacitor mismatch of pseudorandom（PN） sequence injection capacitors at the ADC initialization,while applies digital background calibration to continuously compensate the interstage gain errors in ADC normal operation.The presented technique not only reduces the complexity of analog circuit by eliminating the implementation of PN sequence with accurate amplitude in analog domain,but also improves the performance of digital background calibration by minimizing the sensitivity of calibration accuracy to sub-ADC errors.The use of opamps with low DC gains in normal operation makes the proposed design more compatible with future nanometer CMOS technology.The prototype of a 12-bit 40-MS/s pipelined ADC with the two-mode digital calibration is implemented in 0.18-μm CMOS process.Adopting a simple telescopic opamp with a DC gain of 58-dB in the first stage,the measured SFDR and SNDR within the first Nyquist zone reach 80-dB and 66-dB,respectively.With the calibration,the maximum integral nonlinearity （INL） of the ADC reduces from 4.75-LSB to 0.65-LSB,while the ADC core consumes 82-mW at 3.3-V power supply.

A 14-bit 100-MS/s CMOS pipelined ADC featuring 83.5-dB SFDR

This paper demonstrates a 14-bit 100 MS/s CMOS pipelined analog-to-digital converter （ADC）. The nonlinearity model for bootstrapped switches is established to optimize the design parameters of bootstrapped switches, and the calculations based on this model agree well with the measurement results. In order to achieve high linearity, a gradient-mismatch cancelling technique is proposed, which eliminates the first order gradient error of sampling capacitors by combining arrangement of reference control signals and capacitor layout. Fabricated in a 0.18-μm CMOS technology, this ADC occupies 10.16-mm2 area. With statistics-based background calibration of finite opamp gain in the first stage, the ADC achieves 83.5-dB spurious free dynamic range and 63.7-dB signalto-noise-and distortion ratio respectively, and consumes 393 mW power with a supply voltage of 2 V.

A novel low-voltage operational amplifier for low-power pipelined ADCs

A novel low-voltage two-stage operational amplifier employing class-AB architecture is presented. The structure utilizes level-shifters and current mirrors to create the class-AB behavior in the first and second stages. With this structure, the transconductances of the two stages are double compared with the normal configuration without class-AB behaviors with the same current consumption. Thus power can be saved and the operation frequency can be increased. The nested cascode miller compensation and symmetric common-mode feedback circuits are used for large unit-gain bandwidth, good phase margin and stability. Simulation results show that the sample-and-hold of the 12-bit 40-Ms/s pipelined ADC using the proposed amplifier consumes only 5.8 mW from 1.2 V power supply with signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio 89.5 dB, spurious-free dynamic range 95.7 dB and total harmonic distortion -94.3 dB with Nyquist input signal frequency.

A 430 mW 16 b 170 MS/s CMOS pipelined ADC with 77.2 dB SNR and 97.6 dB SFDR

A 16-bit 170 MS/s pipelined ADC implemented in 0.18 m CMOS process is presented in this paper. An improved digital calibration method and a linearized sampling front-end are employed to achieve a high SFDR. The enlarged full scale range makes it possible to obtain a high SNR with smaller sampling capacitors, thus achieving higher speed and low power. This ADC attains an SNR of 77.2 d BFS, an SFDR of 97.6 d Bc for a 10 MHz input signal, while preserving an SFDR 〉 80 d Bc up to 300 MHz input frequency. The ADC consumes 430 mW from a1.8 V supply and occupies a 17 mm^2 active area.

A 14-bit 100-MS/s CMOS pipelined ADC with 11.3 ENOB

This paper demonstrates a 14-bit 100-MS/s pipelined analog-to-digital converter（ADC） in 0.18μm CMOS process with a 1.8 V supply voltage.A fast foreground digital calibration mechanism is employed to correct capacitor mismatches.The ADC implements an SHA-less 3-bit front-end to reduce the size of the sampled capacitor. The presented ADC achieves a 70.02 dB signal-to-noise distortion ratio（SNDR） and an 87.5 dB spurious-free dynamic range（SFDR） with a 30.7 MHz input signal,while maintaining over 66 dB SNDR and 76 dB SFDR up to 200 MHz input.The power consumption is 543 mW and a total die area of 3 x 4 mm2 is occupied.

A 14-bit 50 MS/s sample-and-hold circuit for pipelined ADC

A high performance sample-and-hold （S/H） circuit used in a pipelined analog-to-digital converter （ADC） is presented. Capacitor flip-around architecture is used in this S/H circuit with a novel gain-boosted differential folded cascode operational transconductance amplifier. A double-bootstrapped switch is designed to improve the performance of the circuit. The circuit is implemented using a 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS process. Measurement results show that the effective number of bits is 14.03 bits, the spurious free dynamic range is 94.62 dB, the signal to noise and distortion ratio is 86.28 dB, and the total harmonic distortion is -91.84 dB for a 5 MHz input signal with 50 MS/s sampling rate. A pipeline ADC with the designed S/H circuit has been implemented.

Optimization of Power Dissipation in Pipelined Analog-to-Digital Converter

Power optimization for pipelined analog-to-digital converter(ADC) was studied. Operational principle of pipelined ADC was discussed and noise voltage caused by two important thermal noise sources, sampling switch and amplifier,was quantitatively analyzed. Method used to minimize power and the values under simple model were presented. Power can be saved by making the sampling and feedback capacitors scale down in the pipeline.And the size of capacitors was limited by thermal noise in high resolution ADC.The equivalent circuits of the two important thermal noise sources were established.Thermal noise was optimally distributed among the pipeline stages,and the relationship between scaling factor and closed loop gain was obtained for minimum power dissipation.Typical closed loop gain was 2 or 4 in pipeline ADC, and the corresponding scaling factor was (1.217) and 1.317.These results can serve as useful guidelines for designers to minimize the ADC′s power consumption.

High performance 14-bit pipelined redundant signed digit ADC

A novel architecture of a pipelined redundant-signed-digit analog to digital converter（RSD-ADC） is presented featuring a high signal to noise ratio（SNR）, spurious free dynamic range（SFDR） and signal to noise plus distortion（SNDR） with efficient background correction logic. The proposed ADC architecture shows high accuracy with a high speed circuit and efficient utilization of the hardware. This paper demonstrates the functionality of the digital correction logic of 14-bit pipelined ADC at each 1.5 bit/stage. This prototype of ADC architecture accounts for capacitor mismatch, comparator offset and finite Op-Amp gain error in the MDAC（residue amplification circuit）stages. With the proposed architecture of ADC, SNDR obtained is 85.89 d B, SNR is 85.9 d B and SFDR obtained is 102.8 d B at the sample rate of 100 MHz. This novel architecture of digital correction logic is transparent to the overall system, which is demonstrated by using 14-bit pipelined ADC. After a latency of 14 clocks, digital output will be available at every clock pulse. To describe the circuit behavior of the ADC, VHDL and MATLAB programs are used. The proposed architecture is also capable of reducing the digital hardware. Silicon area is also the complexity of the design.

A 10 b 50 MS/s two-stage pipelined SAR ADC in 180 nm CMOS

A 10-bit 50 MS/s pipelined SAR ADC is presented which pipelines a 5-bit SAR-based MDAC with a 6-bit SAR ADC.The 1-bit redundancy relaxes the requirement for the sub-ADC decision in accuracy.The SAR-based and ＂half-gain＂ MDAC reduce the power consumption and core area.The dynamic comparator and SAR control logic are applied to reduce power consumption.Implemented in 180 nm CMOS,the fabricated ADC achieves 56.04 dB SNDR and 5mW power consumption from 1.8 V power supply at 50 MS/s.

A 12 bit 100 MS/s pipelined analog to digital converter without calibration

A 1.8 V 12 bit 100 MS/s pipelined analog to digital converter（ADC） in a 0.18μm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor process is presented.The first stage adopts a 3.5 bit structure to relax the capacitor matching requirements.A bootstrapped switch and a scaling down technique are used to improve the ADC＇s linearity and save power dissipation,respectively.With a 15.5 MHz input signal,the ADC achieves 79.8 dB spurious-free dynamic range and 10.5 bit effective number of bits at 100 MS/s.The power consumption is 112 mW at a 1.8 V supply,including output drivers.The chip area is 3.51 mm2,including pads.

A 4 Gbps current-mode transmitter for 12-bit 250 MSPS ADC

A 4 Gbps transmitter for a 12-bit 250 MSPS pipelined ADCs is presented. A low power current mode （CM） output driver with reverse scaling technique is proposed. A high speed, low power combined serializer is implemented to convert 12 bit parallel data into a serial data stream. The whole transmitter is used in a 12-bit 250 MSPS pipelined ADC for the digital output buffer and fabricated in 180 nm 1.8 V 1PSM CMOS technology. Test results show that the transmitter provides an eye height greater than 800 mV for data rates of both 2 Gbps and 4 Gbps, the 12-bit 250 MSPS ADC achieves the SNR of 69.92 dBFS and SFDR of 81.17 dB with 20.1 MHz input at full sampling speed. The ADC with the 4 Gbps transmitter consumes the power consumption of 395 mW, where the power consumption of transmitter is 75 mW. The ADC occupies an area of 2.5 × 3.2 mm2, where the active area of the transmitter block is 0.5× 1.2 mm2.

A new structure of substage in pipelined analog-to-digital converters

The article presents a new （1＋1）-bit/stage structure for pipelined analog-to-digital converters （ADC）. When the input analog signal of the structure exceeds the converting range of the whole ADC, the signal can still be converted precisely and the output residue voltage of the structure will be in the converting range of the ADC. The structure is used in a 12-bit 40 MS/s pipelined ADC to test its function. The testing results show that the structure has right function and can correct the transition error induced by offset of comparators＇ decision levels. The ADC implemented in Semiconductor Manufactory International Corporation （SMIC） 0.18 μm CMOS process consumes 210 mW and occupies a chip area of 3.2×3.7 mm2.

A 10 bit 200 MS/s pipeline ADC using loading-balanced architecture in 0.18 μm CMOS

A new loading-balanced architecture for high speed and low power consumption pipeline analog-todigital converter（ADC） is presented in this paper. The proposed ADC uses SHA-less, op-amp and capacitor-sharing technique, capacitor-scaling scheme to reduce the die area and power consumption. A new capacitor-sharing scheme was proposed to cancel the extra reset phase of the feedback capacitors. The non-standard inter-stage gain increases the feedback factor of the first stage and makes it equal to the second stage, by which, the load capacitor of op-amp shared by the first and second stages is balanced. As for the fourth stage, the capacitor and op-amp no longer scale down. From the system＇s point of view, all load capacitors of the shared OTAs are balanced by employing a loadingbalanced architecture. The die area and power consumption are optimized maximally. The ADC is implemented in a 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS technology, and occupies a die area of 1.2×1.2 mm^2. The measurement results show a 55.58 dB signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio（SNDR） and 62.97 dB spurious-free dynamic range（SFDR） with a 25 MHz input operating at a 200 MS/s sampling rate. The proposed ADC consumes 115 m W at 200 MS/s from a 1.8 V supply.

A digital background calibration algorithm of a pipeline ADC based on output code calculation

This paper proposes a digital background calibration algorithm to correct linearity errors in a pipelined analog-to-digital converter（ADC）.The algorithm does not modify the analog circuit of pipelined stages and calibrates the raw conversion output by using a backend digital logic.Based on the analysis of the output codes,the calibration logic estimates the bit weight of each stage and corrects the outputs.An experimental 14-bit pipelined ADC is fabricated to verify the algorithm.The results show that INL errors drop from 20 LSB to 1.7 LSB,DNL errors drop from 2 LSB to 0.4 LSB,SNDR grows from 57 to 65.7 dB and THD drops from -58 to -81 dB.The linearity of the pipelined ADC is improved significantly.