Postcorrection of Pipelined Analog–Digital Converters Based on Input-Dependent Integral Nonlinearity Modeling

The integral nonlinearity (INL) is used for the postcorrection of analog-digital converters (ADCs). An input-frequency-dependent INL model is developed for the postcorrection. The model consists of a static term that is dependent on the ADC output code and a dynamic term that has an additional dependence on the input frequency. The concept of ADC digital output postcorrection by INL is first introduced. The INL model is subtracted from the digital output for postcorrection. The static compensation part is made by adjacent sets of gains and offsets, where each set corrects a range of output codes. The dynamic information, i.e., the frequency dependence of the INL dynamic component is used to construct a set of filter blocks that performs ADC compensation in the time domain. The compensation scheme is applied to the measured data of two ADCs of the same type (Analog Devices AD9430). Performance improvements in terms of spurious-free dynamic range, signal-to-noise and distortion ratio, intermodulation distortion, and noise are obtained. The dynamic compensation part, due to its frequency dependence, can be generalized; hence, a postcorrection block model can be used for compensating multiple ADCs of the same type.