Highly digital, low-cost design of statistic signal acquisition in SoCs

Presently, the gap between analog and digital processes is ever increasing. Although digital circuits are still obeying Moore´s law, their analog counterparts follow far behind. Since signal acquisition, through ADC circuits is an often required feature, for many embedded applications the benefits of Moore´s law have not been achieved. This paper presents our approach to take advantage of the increasing integration of technology for analog interfacing in SoC´s, by converting the statistics of the signal. Digital self-tuning of the threshold levels, the use of less expensive and highly variable analog blocks, and stochastic convergence of resolution allow a robust acquisition process. We present the mathematics behind the approach, as well as a set of target applications and experimental results validating the concept.