Architectural selection of A/D converters

A method for the architectural selection of analog to digital (A/D) converters based on a generic figure of merit is described. First a figure of merit for the power consumption is introduced. This figure of merit includes both target specifications and technology data and has five generic parameters. The values of these generic parameters can be estimated by analyzing the different converter structures or by means of a fitting procedure using data from published designs. It is shown that the generic parameters have different values for different types of converters. Therefore the tradeoff between speed, resolution, power dissipation and technology parameters depends on the type of converter. It is shown that the calculated figures of merit of the published designs, together with the calculated global trade-off comprise a surface in the (5 dimensional) design space. This surface makes it possible to accurately predict the power consumption and select the best converter solution for a certain target application. This can then serve as a first step in data converter synthesis or as a power estimator during high-level system design exploration.