A background digital calibration of split-capacitor 16-bit SAR ADC with sub-binary architecture

The paper introduces a sub-binary architecture in 16-bit split-capacitor successive-approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The redundancy in sub-binary capacitors array provides ways to correct the dynamic errors in conversion procedure with a smaller overall conversion time. So the redundancy can be used to solve the mismatch or parasitic problems in split-capacitor CDAC SAR. A background digital calibration method with perturbation is utilized to calibrate the conversion errors. The behavioral simulation and measured results show that the 16-bit SAR ADC performance can be improved after the digital calibration. The prototype was fabricated in 0.18 μm CMOS process. The INL are −6/7.813 LSB, the DNL are −0.925/1.313 before calibration. After calibration, the INL are −0.813/0.938, the DNL are −0.625/0.688. The measured ENOB is 11.42 bit and SFDR is 79.95 dB before calibration, while the ENOB is 14.46 bit and SFDR is 95.65 dB after calibration.     

A 10-bit 50 MS/s SAR ADC in 65 nm CMOS with on-chip reference voltage buffer

This paper presents the design of a 10-bit, 50 MS/s successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with an on-chip reference voltage buffer implemented in 65 nm CMOS process. The speed limitation on SAR ADCs with off-chip reference voltage and the necessity of a fast-settling reference voltage buffer are elaborated. Design details of a high-speed reference voltage buffer which ensures precise settling of the DAC output voltage in the presence of bondwire inductances are provided. The ADC uses bootstrapped switches for input sampling, a double-tail high-speed dynamic comparator and split binary-weighted capacitive array charge redistribution DACs. The split binary-weighted array DAC topology helps us to achieve low area and less capacitive load and thus enhances power efficiency. Top-plate sampling is utilized in the DAC to reduce the number of switches. In post-layout simulation which includes the entire pad frame and associated parasitics, the ADC achieves an ENOB of 9.25 bits at a supply voltage of 1.2 V, typical process corner and sampling frequency of 50 MS/s for near-Nyquist input. Excluding the reference voltage buffer, the ADC consumes 697 μW and achieves an energy efficiency of 25 fJ/conversion-step while occupying a core area of 0.055 mm².     

A 10-bit 300-MS/s asynchronous SAR ADC with strategy of optimizing settling time for capacitive DAC in 65 nm CMOS

A 10-bit 300-MS/s asynchronous SAR ADC in 65 nm CMOS is presented in this paper. To achieve low power, binary-weighed capacitive DAC is employed without any digital correction or calibration. Consequently, settling time for the capacitive DAC would be a dominant limiting factor for the ADC operating speed. A novel architecture is proposed to optimize the settling time for the capacitive DAC, which depends merely on the on-resistance of switches and the capacitance of unit capacitor and irrelevant to the resolution. Therefore, high-speed high-resolution SAR ADC is possible. What is deserved to highlight is that the architecture improves the ADC performance at a fraction of the cost, with only some capacitors and control logic added. Post-layout simulation has been made for the SAR ADC. At a 1.2-V supply voltage and a sampling rate of 300 MS/s, it consumes 1.27 mW and achieves an SNDR of 60 dB, an SFDR of 67.5 dB, with the Nyquist input. The SAR ADC occupies a core area of 450×380 μm².     

A 1.8 V 3 GS/s 7-bit time-interleaved Quasi C-2C SAR ADC using voltage-comparator time-information

This paper presents a 7-bit 15 × interleaved SAR ADC that operates up to 3 GS/s, using 180 nm CMOS technology. The ADC utilizes the transient information of a dynamic SAR voltage-comparator to resolve 2 bits per clock cycle, using a time-comparator block. Thus, only 5 clock cycles are needed to resolve 7 bits. This results in speed improvement of about 60%, compared to conventional ADC. Also, an improved Quasi C-2 C DAC structure with reduced internal node swing and reduced switching activity are utilized, which decreases the power consumption of DAC up to 65%. We employ the above techniques in designing a 7-bit SAR ADC, in which 3 bits are resolved with time-comparator blocks and 4 bits are resolved with a voltage-comparator. To calibrate the proposed time-comparator block, a calibration process is proposed. ADS simulation of the ADC illustrates an ENOB (Effective Number of Bits) > 6.5-bit and SFDR (Spur Free Dynamic Range) = −52.8 dBc for a single SAR converter with sampling at 200 MS/s. For the time-interleaved SAR ADC with 15 single SAR converters, ENOB is 6.15-bit and SFDR = −45 dBc with sampling at 3 GS/s up to Nyquist frequency. This ADC consumes 150 mW at 1.8 V supply and achieves a Figure-of-Merit (FoM) of 700 fJ/conv-step.     

22 μm-pitch 9-bit Column-Parallel Overlapping-Subrange SAR (CPOSSAR) ADC

The Column-Parallel Overlapping-Subrange Successive-Approximation-Register Analog-to-Digital Converter (CPOSSAR ADC) uses a 5-bit split capacitor DAC twice to achieve 9-bit resolution. Its total capacitor area is only 3% of a 9-bit binary weighted DAC and the average switching power is only 12% of a conventional 9-bit DAC. The ADC can perform a 9-bit conversion by first digitizing the 4 most significant bits (MSB) in a coarse conversion stage and then digitizing the 5 least significant bits (LSB) in a fine conversion stage. The accuracy requirement of the DAC is reduced by using overlapping subranges. The proposed ADC achieved an SFDR of 73.6 dB and a SINAD of 55 dB in post-layout simulation, corresponding to an ENOB of 8.8 bits. The design was fabricated in a TSMC׳s 0.35 μm high-voltage process. The use of overlapping subranges reduced the DNL error from +5.14/−1 LSB to +1.27/−0.92 LSB, and improved the INL error from +5.35/−5.34 LSB to +3.17/−3.18 LSB. At a sampling rate of 1.1 MS/s the ADC achieved 41.5 dB SFDR, 34.2 dB SINAD, and consumed 242 μW/channel dynamic power. An individual ADC channel is only 22 μm wide. COPSSAR ADCs are a factor of 4, 2, and 2.5 more area efficient than Multiple-ramp Single-slope ADCs, SAR ADCs, and Cyclic ADCs.     

An 8 bit, 100 kS/s,switch-capacitor DAC SAR ADC for RFID applications

An 8 bit switch-capacitor DAC successive approximation analog to digital converter (SAR-ADC) for sensor-RFID application is presented in this paper. To achieve minimum chip area, maximum simplicity is imposed on capacitive DAC; replacing capacitor bank with only a one switch-capacitor circuit. The regulated dynamic current mirror (RDCM) design is introduced to provide stabilized current. This invariable current from RDCM, charging or discharging the only capacitor in circuit is controlled by pulse width modulated signal to realize switch capacitor DAC. The switch control scheme is built using basic AND gates to generate the control signals for RDCM. Only one capacitor and reduced transistor count in digital part reduces the silicon area occupied by the ADC to only 0.0098 mm². The converter, designed in GPDK 90 nm CMOS, exhibits maximum sampling frequency of 100 kHz & consumes 6.75 µW at 1 V supply. Calculated signal to noise and distortion ratio (SNDR) at 1 V supply and 100 kS/s is 48.68 dB which relates to ENOB of 7.79 bits. The peak values of differential and integral nonlinearity are found to be +0.70/−0.89 LSB and +1.40/−0.10 LSB respectively. Evaluated figure of merit (FOM) is 3.87×10²⁰, which show that the proposed ADC acquires minimal silicon area and has sufficiently low power consumption compared to its counterparts in RFID applications.     

A low power and small area digital self-calibration technique for pipeline ADC

A digital self-calibration implementation with discontinuity-error and gain-error corrections for a pipeline analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented. In the proposed calibration method, the error owing to each reference unit capacitor of the multiplying D/A converter is measured separately using a calibration capacitor and an enhanced resolution back-end pipeline ADC acting as an error quantizer. The offset and finite open loop DC-gain of the operational amplifier and capacitor mismatches, the reference voltage mismatch can all be calibrated. The calibration can be achieved by that only used addition and subtraction. Hence, it needs low power and area consuming. A prototype ADC with the proposed calibration was fabricated on a 0.5 μm double-poly triple-metal CMOS process. The power consumption and area of the calibration circuit are only 10.1 mW and 1.05 mm², respectively. At a sampling rate of 30 MS/s, the calibration improves the DNL and INL from 2.59 LSB and 14.98 LSB to 0.72 LSB and 1.82 LSB, respectively. For a 1.25 MHz sinusoidal signal, the calibration improves the signal-to-noise-distortion ratio and spurious-free dynamic range from 43.1 dB and 52.1 dB to 75.51 dB and 83.61 dB, respectively. The 12.25 effective number of bits at 30 MS/s ADC consumes a total power of 136 mW.     

一种SAR ADC电容失配自测量与数字校准技术

为了解决高分辨率逐次逼近模数转换器(SAR ADC)中,电容式数模转换器(DAC)的电容失配导致精度下降的问题,提出了一种电容失配自测量方法,以及一种可适用于各种差分电容DAC设计的低复杂度的前台数字校准方法。该方法利用自身电容阵列及比较器完成位电容失配测量,基于电容失配的转换曲线分析,对每一位输出的权重进行修正,得到实际DAC电容大小对应的正确权重,完成数字校准。数模混合电路仿真结果表明,引入电容失配的16位SAR ADC,经该方法校准后,有效位数由10.74 bit提高到15.38 bit。     

Passive reference-sharing SAR ADC

Charge-redistribution successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are widely used for their simple architecture, inherent low-power consumption and small footprint. Several techniques aiming to reduce the power consumption, to increase the speed, and to reduce the capacitance spread have been developed, such as splitting the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) capacitor array, and charging and discharging the DAC capacitors in multiple steps. In this paper, a fully differential, low-power, passive reference voltage sharing SAR ADC architecture is presented, along with its theoretical analysis and test results. In this architecture, suitable for low sampling rate and low-resolution applications, the reference voltage is scaled down by successively connecting equally sized capacitors in parallel, allowing the use of small capacitor for its implementation. The implemented 6-bit ADC is one of the smallest ADCs reported in a 180-nm technology, and features a FoM between 30.8 and 39.3 fJ per conversion step without considering the clock generator power consumption.     

An NTF-enhanced incremental ΣΔ modulator using a SAR quantizer

In this paper, a noise transfer function (NTF) enhanced incremental sigma-delta (ΣΔ) modulator is presented. It employs a charge redistribution successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in an error-feedback scheme to achieve an extra noise-shaping order. Using a multi-bit SAR quantizer not only improves the stability and power consumption but also facilitates the realization of both the adder situated in front of the quantizer and the whole error-feedback loop. As a design example, a multiplexed 2nd-order modulator based on the proposed architecture is simulated in TSMC 90 nm CMOS technology using Spectre with a 1 V single power supply. The simulation results show a signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SNDR) of 85.3 dB within a signal bandwidth of 20 kHz (1 kHz/channel) at 5 MHz sampling frequency. The power consumption for each channel is 8.6 µW.     

Design considerations of calibration DAC in self-calibrated SAR A/D converters

A capacitive calibration digital-to-analog converter (CDAC) is commonly used to reduce the mismatch-induced linearity errors for successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADC) employing capacitor arrays. There are complicated design considerations in determining the number of bits, the unit capacitor value and even the parasitic capacitors of the CDAC, as these factors affect or are determined by the achievable ADC resolution, the main DAC's capacitance, and the main DAC unit capacitance value, etc. This paper is the first to present a systematic analysis on these relationships. The analysis is validated by behavioral and circuit simulation results.     

A charge-pump and comparator based power-efficient pipelined ADC technique

A charge-pump and comparator based technique is presented for power-efficient pipelined analog-to-digital conversion. The technique takes advantage of a passive charge pump to implement the core function of residue voltage amplification and exploits a comparator-controlled charging circuit to buffer the residue voltage to the next stage. Unlike the conventional buffer circuit using source followers, no voltage headroom is sacrificed in this voltage buffering scheme. The comparator overshoot due to comparator delay is minimized by a self-cancellation scheme. The proposed pipelined ADC technique uses only capacitors, comparators and current sources with digital calibration to achieve low power consumption. Designed and fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology, a proof-of-concept ADC has measured 39.1 dB SNDR (6.2-bit ENOB) at 25 MS/s while consuming 3.5 mW from a 1.8 V supply.     

Improving energy efficiency using a link adaptation algorithm dedicated for 100 Gbps wireless communication

This paper presents a link adaptation algorithm dedicated for 100 Gbps wireless transmission. Interleaved Reed-Solomon codes are selected as forward error correction (FEC) algorithms. The redundancy of the codes is selected according to the channel bit error rate (BER). The uncomplicated FEC scheme allows implementing a complete data link layer processor in an FPGA (field programmable gate array). In our case, we use the Virtex7 FPGA to validate the functionality of our implementation. The proposed FPGA-processor achieves 169 Gbps throughput. Moreover, the implementation is synthesized into 40 nm CMOS technology and the described link adaptation algorithm allows reducing consumed energy per bit to values below 1 pJ/bit at BER <1e−4. With higher BER, the energy increases up to ∼13 pJ/bit.     

An ultra low-power DAC with fixed output common mode voltage

A novel structure of Capacitive Digital to Analog Converters (CDAC) for Successive Approximation Register Analog to Digital Converters (SAR ADC) is presented. In this CDAC, a number of pre-charged capacitors are placed in different series configurations to produce a desired voltage level. Therefore, given an input code, a series configuration of the capacitors is created to produce a voltage. Current is drawn from the supply voltage only in one step of the ADC conversion to reduce the power consumption. Therefore, the proposed CDAC consumes a fixed and small amount of power regardless of the input code. The output common mode voltage (V_cm) of the DAC remains fixed for all the digital codes. This feature helps a lot to improve the linearity of a typical SAR ADC and reduce the power consumption of comparator. The layout of the proposed DAC is very simple and easy to extend in contrast to the binary weighted CDACs where the layout needs lots of care and time. Several Monte-Carlo and Post-Layout simulations using CMOS 0.18 μm technology prove the benefits of the proposed CDAC. The proposed CDAC reduces the power consumption by 99.8% while enhances the speed and linearity of the comparator in a SAR ADC.     

A sub-sampling 4.25 GS/s 3-bit flash ADC with asymmetric spatial filter response

A sub-sampling 3-bit 4.25 GS/s flash ADC with a novel averaging termination technique—asymmetric spatial filter response—in 0.13 um CMOS for impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) receiver is presented. In this design, a track and hold (T/H) circuit with self-biased buffer is used to compensate the degradation in amplitude when frequency increases to giga Hz. Averaging termination technique using asymmetric spatial filter response is proposed to relieve the termination offset of the flash ADC. A revised encoder scheme is adopted to solve the problem of different propagation delay. The measurement results reveal that the SFDR and SNDR of the ADC are 26.3 dB and 18.4 dB, respectively, even the input signal frequency is 4.2 GHz. INL and DNL are measured improved to 0.11LSB and 0.18LSB, respectively, when asymmetric spatial filter is used. The power of ADC is 63 mW and the active area is 0.49×0.72 mm². The ADC achieves a figure of merit (FoM) of 2.2 pJ/conversion-step.     

An MCT-Based Bit-Weight Extraction Technique for Embedded SAR ADC Testing and Calibration

This paper presents a self-testing and calibration technique for the embedded successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in system-on-chip (SoC) designs. We first proposed a low cost design-for-test (DfT) technique that estimates the SAR ADC performance before and after calibration by characterizing its digital-to-analog converter (DAC) capacitor weights (bit weights). Utilizing major carrier transition (MCT) testing, the required analog measurement range is only about 1 LSB; this significantly reduces test circuitry complexity. Then, we develop a fully-digital calibration technique that utilizes the extracted bit weights to correct the non-ideal I/O behavior induced by capacitor mismatch. Simulation results show that (1) the proposed testing technique achieves very high test accuracy even in the presence of large noise, and (2) the proposed calibration technique effectively improves both static and dynamic performances of the SAR ADC.     

Nano-dot arrays with a bit pitch and a track pitch of 25 nm formed by EB writing for 1 Tb/in2 storage

The possibility of forming very fine pits or dots with a bit pitch (BP) and a track pitch (TP) of 25 nm was investigated using a conventional electron-beam (EB) writing system and positive and negative EB resists ZEP520 and calixarene, respectively. In our experiments, we obtained very small dots with a diameter of around 13 nm, and ultrahigh-density dot arrays with a BP and a TP of 25 nm using calixarene resist. Calixarene resist is very suitable for the formation of ultrahigh-packed dot array patterns, and promises to open the way toward 1 trillion bits/in² storage. We believe that calixarene is more suitable for ultrahigh-density pattern formation than ZEP520 because of its exposure intensity distribution function and its resist structure.     

基于16位SAR模数转换器的误差校准方法

为了实现较高精度(16位及更高)的逐次逼近(SAR)ADC,提出了一种误差自动校准技术。考虑到芯片面积、功耗和精度的折中,采用了电荷再分配分段电容DAC结构,并采用准差分输入方式提高ADC的信噪比。为了消除电容失配引入的误差,提出了一种误差自动校准算法,利用误差校准DAC阵列对电容失配误差进行量化并存储在RAM中,在AD转换过程中实现误差消除。     

一种用于14 bit SAR ADC的DAC设计

本文设计了用于14bit逐次逼近型模数转换器（SAR ADC）的DAC电路。针对该DAC,介绍一种全差分分段电容阵列结构以缩小DAC的版图面积;高二位权电容采用热码控制,用以改善高位电容在转换时跳变的尖峰以及DAC的单调性;对电容阵列采用数字校准技术,减小电容阵列存在的失配,以提高SAR ADC精度。校准前,SAR ADC的INL达到10LSB,DNL达到4LSB;与校准前相比,校准后,INL〈0.5LSB,DNL〈0.6LSB。仿真结果表明,本DAC设计极大改善SAR ADC的性能,已达到设计要求。     

A wideband RF receiver with extended statistical element selection based harmonic rejection calibration

In this paper we present a wideband harmonic rejection (HR) RF receiver design. Both gain mismatch and phase mismatch of the HR mixer have been calibrated using a design and calibration method called extended statistical element selection to achieve best-in-class HR ratio (HRR) performance. The achieved concurrent 3rd order HRR and 5th order HRR are greater than 80 dB and 70 dB, respectively, after calibration. The even order HRR is also calibrated to greater than 80 dB. A single calibration performed at 750 MHz was further observed to be effective over more than two octaves of bandwidth with greater than 70 dB HRR. The receiver was manufactured in 65 nm CMOS technology. Input RF frequency range was 0.15–1 GHz and the receiver consumes 64 mW at 1 GHz. Noise figure is 3.2 dB and out-of-band IIP3 is −7 dBm at a total gain of 48 dB.