A differential current-mode track-and-hold (T/H) amplifier is used to sample an analog input signal. A new closed-loop current-mode architecture has been developed that overcomes the stability problems associated with closed-loop architectures. The T/H circuit has been fabricated in a 0.35-��m quad-metal, double-poly CMOS process. The measured total harmonic distortion (THD) is -81dB and -65dB with an input signal frequency of 100KHz and 10MHz, respectively. This is the best performance reported to date for a CMOS implementation. / Graduation date: 2003

This thesis describes compensation techniques for cascaded delta-sigma A/D converters (ADCs) and high-performance switched-capacitor (SC) circuits. Various correlated-double-sampling (CDS) techniques are presented to reduce the effects of the nonidealities, such as clock feedthrough, charge injection, opamp input-referred noise and offset, and finite opamp gain, in SC circuits. A CDS technique for the compensation of opamp input-referred offset and clock-feedthrough effect is examined and improved to achieve continuous operation. Experimental results show that after the compensation, the SC integrator's output signal swing is greatly increased. The effects of the analog circuitry nonidealities in delta-sigma ADCs are also analyzed. The analysis shows that the nonidealities in cascaded delta-sigma ADCs cause noise leakage, which limits the overall performance of the cascaded modulators. In order to reduce the noise leakage, a novel adaptive compensation technique is proposed. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed compensation techniques, a prototype 2-0 cascaded modulator was designed. Its first stage, a second-order delta-sigma modulator with test signal input circuit, was designed and fabricated in 1.2 ��m CMOS technology. The measurement results show that the noise leakage is reduced effectively by the compensation, and the performance of the cascaded delta-sigma modulator is greatly improved. / Graduation date: 1999

The advance of digital IC technology has been very fast, as shown by rapid development of DSP, digital communication and digital VLSI. Within electronic signal processing, analog-to-digital conversion is a key function, which converts the analog signal into digital form for further processing. Recently, low-voltage and low-power have become also an important factors in IC development. This thesis investigates some novel techniques for the design of low-power high-performance A/D converters in CMOS technology, and the non-ideal switched-capacitor effects of (SC) circuits. A new successive-approximation A/D converter is proposed with a novel error cancellation scheme. This A/D converter needs only a simple opamp, a comparator, and a few switches and capacitors. It can achieve high resolution with relative low power consumption. A new ratio-independent cyclic A/D converter is also proposed with techniques to compensate for the non-ideal effects. The implementation include a new differential sampling that is used to achieve ratio-independent multiple-by-two operation. Extensive simulations were performed to demonstrate the excellent performance of these data converters. / Graduation date: 1999

Delta-sigma modulators are currently a very popular technique for making high-resolution analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters (ADCs and DACs). Most delta-sigma modulators in production today employ single-bit quantization because a 1-bit DAC is inherently linear, whereas a multi-bit DAC is not. Were it not for this drawback, the use of multi-bit quantization would improve a delta-sigma modulator's performance by increasing the modulator's resolution or increasing the modulators's bandwidth, while at the same time whitening the quantization noise and improving modulator stability. This thesis explores the element-mismatch-shaping technique, which attenuates the noise caused by static element mismatch in a multi-level DAC by a method similar to delta-sigma modulation. Existing element-matching techniques are reviewed and some analytical and architectural work related to the realization of mismatch-shaping logic is presented. A custom switched-capacitor (SC) DAC is used to verify various element mismatch-shaping algorithms. Experiments show that mismatch-shaping can reduce harmonic distortion by up to 30 dB. / Graduation date: 1998

Multi-level decision feedback equalization (MDFE) is a sampled signal processing technique for data recovery from magnetic recording channels which use the 2/3(1,7) run length limited code. The key adaptive feedback loops in MDFE are those which perform the timing recovery, gain recovery, dc offset detection, and adaptive equalization of the feedback equalizer. The algorithms used by these adaptive loops are derived from the channel error which is the deviation of the equalized signal from its ideal value. It is advantageous to convert this error signal to a digital value using a flash analog-to-digital converter (flash ADC) to simplify the implementation of the adaptive loops. In this thesis, a scheme to place the thresholds of the flash ADC is presented. The threshold placement has been optimized based on the steady-state probability density function (pdf) of the signal to be quantized. The resolution constraints imposed by this quantization scheme on the adaptive loops has been characterized. As the steady-state assumption for the signal to be quantized is not valid during the transient state of the adaptive loops, the loop transients with this quantization scheme have been analyzed through simulations. The conditions under which the channel can recover from a set of start-up errors and converge successfully into steady-state have been specified. The steady-state channel performance with the noise introduced by the iterative nature of the adaptive loops along with this quantization scheme has also been verified. / Graduation date: 1997

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-110). Also available on the World Wide Web.

A 130 nm partially depleted silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology is evaluated with respect to analog circuit implementation. We perform the evaluation through implementation of three flash analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Our study indicate that to fully utilize the potential performance advantages of the SOI CMOS technology the partially depleted SOI CMOS technology should be replaced by a fully depleted technology. The manufacturing difficulties regarding the control of the thin-film thickness must however first be solved. A strong motivator for using the SOI CMOS technology instead of bulk CMOS seems to be the smaller gate leakage power consumption. The targeted applications in mind for the ADCs are read channel and ultra wideband radio applications. These applications requires a resolution of at least four to six bits and a sampling frequency of above 1 GHz. Hence the flash ADC topology is chosen for the implementations. In this work we do also propose enhancements to the flash ADC converter. Further, this work also investigates introduction of dynamic element matching (DEM) into a flash ADC. A method to introduce DEM into the reference net of a flash ADC is proposed and evaluated. To optimize the performance of the whole system and derive the specifications for the sub-blocks of the system it is often desired to use a top-down design methodology. To facilitate the top-down design methodology the ADCs are modeled on behavioral level using MATLAB and SpectreHDL. The modeling results are used to verify the functionality of the proposed circuit topologies and serve as a base to the circuit design phase. The first flash ADC implementation has a conventional topology. It has a resistor net connected to a number of latched comparators and employs a ones-counter thermometer-to-binary decoder. This ADC serves as a reference for evaluating the other topologies. The measurements indicate a maximum sampling frequency of 470 MHz, an SNDR of 26.3 dB, and an SFDR of about 29 to 35 dB. The second ADC has a similar topology as the reference ADC, but its thermometer-to-binary decoder is based on 2-to-1 multiplexers buffered with inverters. This gives a compact decoder with a regular structure and a short critical path. The measurements show that it is more efficient in terms of power consumption than the ones-counter decoder and it has 40 % smaller chip area. Further, the SNDR and SFDR are similar as for the reference ADC, but its maximum sampling frequency is about 660 MHz. The third ADC demonstrates the introduction of DEM into the reference net of a flash ADC. Our proposed technique requires fewer switches in the reference net than other proposals. Our technique should thereby be able to operate at higher sampling and input frequencies than compared with the other proposals. This design yields information about the performance improvements the DEM gives, and what the trade-offs are when introducing DEM. Behavioral level simulations indicate that the SFDR is improved by 11 dB in average when introducing DEM. The transistor level simulations in Cadence and measurements of the ADC with DEM indicates that the SFDR improves by 6 dB and 1.5 dB, respectively, when applying DEM. The smaller improvement indicated by the measurements is believed to be due to a design flaw discovered during the measurements. A mask layer for the resistors of the reference net is missing, which affects their accuracy and degrades the ADC performance. The same reference net is used in the other ADCs, and therefore degrades their performance as well. Hence the measured performance is significantly lower than indicated by the transistor level simulations. Further, it is observed that the improved SFDR is traded for an increased chip area and a reduction of the maximum sampling frequency. The DEM circuitry impose a 30 % larger chip area.

Det här arbetet handlar om att ta fram beteendemodeller av analog till digital omvandlare avsedda för tillämpningar i radiofrekvensområdet. Det gäller tillämpningar inom telekommunikation men även in test- och mätinstrument där omvandlingen från analoga till digitala signaler ofta är en prestandamässig flaskhals. Modellerna är avsedda att användas för att efterbehandla utdata från omvandlaren och på så sätt förbättra prestanda på den digitala signalen. Genom att skapa modeller av verkliga omvandlare och hur dessa avviker från ett idealt beteende kan ofullständigheter korrigeras genom så kallad postkorrigering. Beteendemodeller innebär att genererar en lämplig insignal, mäta utdata och beräkna en modell. För omvandlare i radiofrekvensområdet ställs höga krav på instrumentering. Den testutrustningen som används är baserad på moderna högprestanda instrument som har kompletterats med specialbyggd utrustning för signalkonditionering och datainsamling. I avhandlingen har även olika insignaler utvärderats med såväl teoretisk som experimentell analys. Det finns ett flertal olika varianter av modeller för att modulera ett olinjär, dynamisk system. För att få en parametereffektiv modell har utgångspunkten varit att utgå från en Volterramodell som på ett optimalt sätt beskriver svagt olinjära dynamiska system, så som analog till digital omvandlare, men som är alltför omfattande i antal parametrar. Volterramodellens har sedan reducerats till en mindre parameterintensiv, modellerstruktur på så sätt att Volterrakärnans symmetriegenskaper jämförts med symmetrierna hos andra modeller. En alternativ metod är att använda en Kautz-Volterramodell. Den har samma generella egenskaper som Volterramodellen, men är inte lika parameterkrävande. I den här avhandlingen redovisas experimentella resultat av Kautz-Volterramodellen som i framtiden kommer att vara intressanta att använda för postkorrigeringen. För att kunna beskriva beteenden som en dynamiska olinjära modellen inte klarar av har modellen kompletterats med en statisk styckvis linjär modellkomponent. I avhandlingen presenteras en sluten lösning för att identifiera samtliga paramervärden i modellen. Vidare har det i avhandlingen genomförs en analys av hur respektive komponent påverkar prestanda på utsignalen. Därigenom erhålls ett mått på den maximala prestandaförbättring som kan uppnås om felet kan elimineras. / This work considers behavior modeling of analog to digital converters with applications in the radio frequency range, including the field of telecommunication as well as test and measurement instrumentation, where the conversion from analog to digital signals often is a bottleneck in performance. The models are intended to post-process output data from the converter and thereby improve the performance of the digital signal. By building a model of practical converters and the way in which they deviate from ideal, imperfections can be corrected using post-correction methods. Behavior modeling implies generation of a suitable stimulus, capturing the output data, and characterizing a model. The demands on the test setup are high for converters in the radio frequency range. The test-bed used in this thesis is composed of commercial state-of-the-art instruments and components designed for signal conditioning and signal capture. Further, in this thesis, different stimuli are evaluated, theoretically as well as experimentally. There are a large number of available model structures for dynamic nonlinear systems. In order to achieve a parameter efficient model structure, a Volterra model was used as a starting-point, which can describe any weak nonlinear system with fading memory, such as analog to digital converters. However, it requires a large number of coefficients; for this reason the Volterra model was reduced to a model structure with fewer parameters, by comparing the symmetry properties of the Volterra kernels with the symmetries from other models. An alternative method is the Kautz-Volterra model, which has the same general properties as the Volterra model, but with fewer parameters. This thesis gives experimental results of the Kautz-Volterra model, which will be interesting to apply in a post-correction algorithm in the future. To cover behavior not explained by the dynamic nonlinear model, a complementary piecewise linear model component is added. In this thesis, a closed form solution to the estimation problem for both these model components is given. By gradually correcting for each component the performance will improve step by step. In this thesis, the relation between a given component and the performance of the converter is given, as well as potential for improvement of an optimal post-correction. / QC 20100629

Continuous-time filters are critical components in the implementation of large bandwidth, high frequency, and high resolution continuous-time (CT) sigma-delta (ΣΔ) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The loop filter defines the noise-transfer function (NTF) and hence the quantization noise-shaping behavior of the ΣΔ modulator, and becomes the most critical performance determining part in ΣΔ ADC. This thesis work presents the design considerations for the loop filter in low-pass CT ΣΔ ADC with 12-bits resolution in 25MHz bandwidth and low power consumption using 0.18μm CMOS technology. Continuous-time filters are more suitable than discrete-time filters due to relaxed amplifier bandwidth requirements for high frequency ΣΔ ADCs. A fifth-order low-pass filter with cut-off frequency of 25 MHz was designed to meet the dynamic range requirement of the ADC. An active RC topology was chosen for the implementation of the loop filter, which can provide high dynamic range required by the ΣΔ ADC. The design of a summing amplifier and a novel method for adjusting the group delay in the fast path provided by a secondary feedback DAC of the ΣΔ ADC are presented in detail. The ADC was fabricated using Jazz 0.18μm CMOS technology. The implementation issues of OTAs with high-linearity and low-noise performance suitable for the broadband ADC applications are also analyzed in this work. Important design equations pertaining to the linearity and noise performance of the Gm-C biquad filters are presented. A Gm-C biquad with 100MHz center frequency and quality factor 10 was designed as a prototype to confirm with the theoretical design equations. Transistor level circuit implementation of all the analog modules was completed in a standard 0.18μm CMOS process.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-75). Also available on the World Wide Web.