A Reduced Code Linearity Test Method for Pipelined A/D Converters

In this work, a characteristic observation method is proposed to reduce the test time for the INL and DNL testing of a pipelined A/D converter. The symmetrical and specific regular rules are concluded by analyzing the characteristic of a pipelined ADC. As a result, based on the specific rules, only a few code bin widths of specific codes should be measured to accomplish the accurate full-code INL/DNL testing for a pipelined ADC. Simulation results show that the full-code INL/DNL performance of a 10-bit pipelined ADC can be characterized by measuring code bin widths of 33 codes only in our proposed method.