A 121 dB SNDR Zoom ADC Using Dynamic Amplifier and Asynchronous SAR Quantizer

This paper presents a discrete-time zoom analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for low-bandwidth high-precision applications. It uses a coarse-conversion 5-bit asynchronous self-timed SAR ADC combined with a fine-conversion second-order delta-sigma modulator to efficiently obtain a high signal-to-noise distortion ratio (SNDR). An integrator circuit using a high-gain dynamic amplifier is proposed to achieve higher SNDR. The dynamic amplifier uses a switched tail current source to operate periodically, simplifying the common-mode feedback circuit, reducing unnecessary static current, and improving the PVT robustness. Dynamic error correction techniques, such as redundancy, chopping, and dynamic element matching (DEM) are used to achieve low offset and high linearity. And a 2-bit asynchronous SAR quantizer with an embedded feed-forward adder is used in the second-order delta-sigma modulator to reduce the quantization noise caused by redundancy, and further achieve higher energy efficiency. Simulation results show that the ADC achieves a peak SNDR of 121.1 dB in a 390 Hz bandwidth at a 200 kHz sampling clock while consuming only 170 mu W from a 2.5 V supply and the core area is 0.55 mm(2). This results in a Schreier figure of merit (FoM) of 184.7 dB.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a discrete-time zoom analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for low-bandwidth high-precision applications. It combines a coarse-conversion 5-bit asynchronous self-timed SAR ADC with a fine-conversion second-order delta-sigma modulator to achieve a high signal-to-noise distortion ratio (SNDR). The ADC utilizes various techniques such as a high-gain dynamic amplifier, dynamic error correction, and an embedded feed-forward adder to improve performance. Simulation results show that the ADC achieves a peak SNDR of 121.1 dB in a 390 Hz bandwidth while consuming only 170 μW.