4 research outputs found
Accelerated Successive Approximation Technique for Analog to Digital Converter Design
This thesis work presents a novel technique to reduce the number of conversion cycles for Successive Approximation register (SAR) Analog to Digital Converters (ADC), thereby potentially improving the conversion speed as well as reducing its power consumption. Conventional SAR ADCs employ the binary search algorithm and they update only one bound, either the upper or lower bound, of the search space during one conversion cycle. The proposed method, referred to as the Accelerated-SAR or A-SAR, is capable of updating both the lower and upper bounds in a single conversion cycle. Even in cases that it can update only one bound, it does more aggressively. The proposed technique is implemented in a 10-bit SAR ADC circuit with 0.5V power supply and rail-to-rail input range. To cope with the ultra-low voltage design challenge, Time-to-Digital conversion techniques are used in the implementation. Important design issues are also discussed for the charge scaling array and Voltage Controlled Delay Lines (VCDL), which are important building blocks in the ADC implementation
Recommended from our members
Design techniques for low-power SAR ADCs in nano-scale CMOS technologies
This thesis presents low power design techniques for successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) in nano-scale CMOS technologies. Low power SAR ADCs face two major challenges especially at high resolutions: (1) increased comparator power to suppress the noise, and (2) increased DAC switching energy due to the large DAC size. To improve the comparator’s power efficiency, a statistical estimation based comparator noise reduction technique is presented. It allows a low power and noisy comparator to achieve high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by estimating the conversion residue. A first prototype ADC in 65nm CMOS has been developed to validate the proposed noise reduction technique. It achieves 4.5 fJ/conv-step Walden figure of merit and 64.5 dB signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SNDR). In addition, a bidirectional single-side switching technique is developed to reduce the DAC switching power. It can reduce the DAC switching power and the total number of unit capacitors by 86% and 75%, respectively. A second prototype ADC with the proposed switching technique is designed and fabricated in 180nm CMOS technology. It achieves an SNDR of 63.4 dB and consumes only 24 Wat 1MS/s, leading to aWalden figure of merit of 19.9 fJ/conv-step. This thesis also presents an improved loop-unrolled SAR ADC, which works at high frequency with reduced SAR logic power and delay. It employs the bidirectional single-side switching technique to reduce the comparator common-mode voltage variation. In addition, it uses a Vcm-adaptive offset calibration technique which can accurately calibrate comparator’s offset at its operating Vcm. A prototype ADC designed in 40nm CMOS achieves 35 dB at 700 MS/s sampling rate and consumes only 0.95 mW, leading to a Walden figure of merit of 30 fJ/conv-step.Electrical and Computer Engineerin
Recommended from our members
Design and implementation of Radix-3/Radix-2 based novel hybrid SAR ADC in scaled CMOS technologies
This thesis focuses on low power and high speed design techniques for successive
approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) in nanoscale
CMOS technologies. SAR ADCs’ speed is limited by the number of bits of
resolution. An N-bit conventional SAR ADC takes N conversion cycles. To speed
up the conversion process, we introduce a radix-3 SAR ADC which can compute
1:6 bits per cycle. To our knowledge, it is the first fully programmable and efficiently
hardware controlled radix-3 SAR ADC. We had to use two comparators per
cycle due to ADC architecture and we proposed a simple calibration scheme for
the comparators. Also, as the architecture of the DAC array is completely different
from the architecture of conventional radix-2 SAR ADC’s DAC arrays, we came up
with an algorithm for calibration of capacitors of the DAC.
Low power SAR ADCs face two major challenges especially at high resolutions:
(1) increased comparator power to suppress the noise, and (2) increased
DAC switching energy due to the large DAC size. Due to our proposed architecture,the radix-3 SAR ADC uses two comparators per cycle and two differential DACs.
To improve the comparator’s power efficiency, an efficient and low cost calibration
technique has been introduced. It allows a low power and noisy comparator to
achieve high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
To improve the DAC switching energy, we introduced a radix-3/radix-2
based novel hybrid SAR ADC. We use two single ended DACs for radix-3 SAR
ADC and these two single ended DACs can be used as one differential DAC for
radix-2 SAR ADC. So, overall, we only have a single DAC as conventional radix-
2 SAR ADC. In addition, a monotonic switching technique is adopted for radix-2
search to reduce the DAC capacitor size and hence, to reduce switching power. It
can reduce the total number of unit capacitors by four times. Our proposed hybrid
SAR ADC can achieve less DAC energy compared to radix-3 and radix-2 SAR
ADCs. Also, to utilize technology scaling, we used the minimum capacitor size
allowed by thermal noise limitations. To achieve high resolution, we introduced
calibration algorithm for the DAC array.
As mentioned earlier, the radix-3 SAR ADC offers higher power than conventional
radix-2 SAR ADC because of simultaneous use of two comparators. In
the proposed hybrid SAR ADC, we will be using radix-3 search for first few MSB
bits. So, the resolution required for radix-3 comparators are much larger than the
LSB value of 10-bit ADC. By implementing calibration of comparators, we can
use low power, high input referred offset and high speed comparators for radix-3
search. Radix-2 search will be used for rest of the bits and the resolution of the
radix-2 comparator has to be less than the required LSB value. So, a high power, low input referred offset and high speed comparator is used for radix-2 search.
Also, we introduced clock gating for comparators. So, radix-3 comparators will not
toggle during radix-2 search and the radix-2 comparators will be inactive during
radix-3 search. By using the aforementioned techniques, the overall comparator
power is definitely less than a radix-3 SAR ADC and comparable to a conventional
radix-2 SAR ADC.
A prototype radix-3/radix-2 based hybrid SAR ADC with the proposed
technique is designed and fabricated in 40nm CMOS technology. It achieves an
SNDR of 56.9 dB and consumes only 0.38 mW power at 30MS/s, leading to a
Walden figure of merit of 21.5 fJ/conv-step.Electrical and Computer Engineerin