The design and implementation of a novel ADC architecture called ring-ADC for digital voltage regulator module controllers are presented. Based on the principle of voltage-controlled oscillators＇ transform from volta...The design and implementation of a novel ADC architecture called ring-ADC for digital voltage regulator module controllers are presented. Based on the principle of voltage-controlled oscillators＇ transform from voltage to frequency,the A/D conversion of ring-ADC achieves good linearity and precise calibration against process variations compared with the delay-line ADC. A differential pulse counting discriminator also helps decrease the power consumption of the ring-ADC. It is fabricated with a Chartered 0.35μm CMOS process, and the measurement results of the integral and differential nonlinearity performance are 0.92LSB and 1.2LSB respectively. The maximum gain error measured in ten sample chips is ± 3.85%. With sampling rate of 500kHz and when the voltage regulator module （VRM） works in steady state, the ring-ADC＇s average power consumption is 2.56mW. The ring-ADC is verified to meet the requirements for digital VRM controller application.展开更多
文摘The design and implementation of a novel ADC architecture called ring-ADC for digital voltage regulator module controllers are presented. Based on the principle of voltage-controlled oscillators＇ transform from voltage to frequency,the A/D conversion of ring-ADC achieves good linearity and precise calibration against process variations compared with the delay-line ADC. A differential pulse counting discriminator also helps decrease the power consumption of the ring-ADC. It is fabricated with a Chartered 0.35μm CMOS process, and the measurement results of the integral and differential nonlinearity performance are 0.92LSB and 1.2LSB respectively. The maximum gain error measured in ten sample chips is ± 3.85%. With sampling rate of 500kHz and when the voltage regulator module （VRM） works in steady state, the ring-ADC＇s average power consumption is 2.56mW. The ring-ADC is verified to meet the requirements for digital VRM controller application.
