Wideband Hybrid pipeline ADC

To be able to cope with the demands of next generation radar applications, a bandwidth of 400MHz is required. The SAR assisted CT ∆Σ ADC provides an energy efficient ADC, but needs improvements to cope with the bandwidth enlargement. This thesis examines the front end components and thus initially focuses on resolving the issues in the front end...

A Continuous-Time Zoom ADC for Audio Applications based on a High-Linearity OTA and a 4-bit SAR ADC

Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) used in high fidelity audio applications require high linearity and a wide dynamic range (>100 dB). Moreover, for use in portable electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and hearing aids, these ADCs must also achieve high energy efficiency. This requirement of high linearity and high energy...

A Fully-Passive Noise-Shaping SAR for use in a Zoom ADC

The ΔΣ analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is widely used in audio applications for its high resolution. However, it is less energy efficient compared to Nyquist Rate ADCs. The growing demand for portable and wearable devices poses a more stringent power-efficient requirement on the audio system, and the traditional ADCs architecture is hard to...

A Low-Power Area-Efficient SAR-Assisted Hybrid ADC for Ultrasound Imaging

This thesis presents a Low-Power Area-Ecient SAR-Assisted Hybrid ADC for ultra-<br/>sound imaging systems. This ADC combines a 5-bit SAR ADC per channel with a 4-bit single-slope ADC that produces the converter's LSBs and is implemented using shared hardware. The number of unit capacitors of the proposed ADC is about 1/16th of that of a 9-bit...

A Dynamic Zoom ADC with 109-dB DR for Audio Applications

This paper presents the first dynamic zoom ADC. Intended for audio applications, it achieves 109-dB DR, 106-dB signal-to-noise ratio, and 103-dB SNDR in a 20-kHz bandwidth, while dissipating only 1.12 mW. This translates into the state-of-the-art energy efficiency as expressed by a Schreier FoM of 181.5 dB. It also achieves the state-of-the...