The Dynamic Element Matching (DEM) technique’s role is to mitigate mismatch issues in complex, matrix-based systems. Previous work employing a matrix-based random DEM scheme demonstrated enhanced linearity and spectral characteristics in the Digital to Analog Converter’s (DAC) thermometric decoded section. This paper presents the design of an area-optimized, DEM-assisted 9-bit segmented DAC. The optimal segmentation level for area-performance is initially established. Subsequently, to mitigate area constraints from the integral nonlinearity (INL) requirement and improve spectral performance, we utilize the matrix-based DEM engine from prior research. The proposed 9-bit DAC, implemented in a commercial 180 nm CMOS process, achieves a total harmonic distortion (THD) of-79 dB and a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 79 dB, resulting in 8× and 16× improvements in SFDR and THD, respectively, over its non-DEM counterpart.

The Dynamic Element Matching (DEM) technique's role is to mitigate mismatch issues in complex, matrix-based systems. In this paper, we explore the impact of partially applying DEM to the thermometrically encoded 10-bit most significant bits (MSBs) out of a high-resolution segmented 16-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) with the least significant 6 bits being binary encoded. Specifically, we design a general purpose scalable digital control circuit able to employ the DEM algorithm, independent of the matrix dimensions. When implementing the proposed controller using a commercial 180 nm CMOS process, tailored to the 10-bit thermometric decoded DAC MSBs, the integral nonlinearity (INL) 12.63 times lower and the differential nonlinearity (DNL) is 5.8 times lower. The silicon area required for the additional circuitry is around 0.12 mm ², with a power consumption of up to 12.88 mA from a 1.8 V power supply when running at 100 MHz.

The instrumentation amplifier, which incorporates Dynamic Element Matching (DEM) and a resistive network, utilizes a digital controller to reduce gain error by means of averaging. This paper assesses the feasibility of combining, within a general-purpose microcontroller, the appealing DEM, i.e., very accurate resistive ratios ranging between 1 and 15, with the associated versatile and scalable interrupt-aware digital controller. Given a mixedsignal system, a hybrid evaluation environment has been developed to perform relevant testbenches for assessing the systems performance, i.e., DEM controller, muxes, OpAmps, with respect to relevant metrics for integrated digital and mixed-signal circuits, i.e., energy, delay, footprint, precision. When implementing our design in a commercial 180nm technology, the gain precision of a typical amplifier is improved by more than 1800 times, with the error converging to as low as 10s of ppm, for Gaussian mismatch distribution between-1% and 1% with the cost of DEM digital circuitry which adds about 30000 µm² of chip area and will consume 194 µA.