Specification-based design of ΣΔM for A/D and D/A conversion

The paper establishes a correspondence between performance requirements, mathematical parameters, and circuit parameters of a sigma-delta modulator. The sigma-delta modulator is viewed as a device which distributes the noise power over a much broader band, compared to signal bandwidth, shapes and amplifies it, and allows filtering of the out-of-band noise. The shaping and amplification are quantified by two parameters, F and P, whose product is analogous to the square of step size of a uniform coder. These two parameters are related, on one hand, to the time constants or location of zero and poles. On the other hand, inequalities are set up between performance parameters, like signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range, and F and P.