Analog-to-digital converter testing - new proposals

New static and dynamic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) testing techniques are revised and discussed. A new test method based on the Histogram Method but using small-amplitude triangular waves with a variable offset is shown to have several advantages over the traditional static test, namely a dramatic reduction in test duration even for high-resolution ADCs. The use of Gaussian noise to stimulate ADCs led to a new dynamic test method that allows the test of high frequency, or high resolution ADCs in those cases where the traditional sinusoidal stimuli are not available with the required spectral purity. The requirements for this test gave birth to a new method of assessing the amplitude distribution and density in stimulus signals, determining the nonlinearities and compensating them. The four-parameter sine fitting algorithm traditionally used in time domain tests is modified in order to improve convergence. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.