A fully synthesized all-digital VCO-based analog-to-digital converter

Synthesis of all-digital ADCs leads to significant reduction in design cost and design time, besides improving cross-technology portability. In this work, an ADC which is fully described in digital HDL is synthesized, placed and routed using standard digital design tools. A VCO-based architecture is chosen for its synthesizability. The design flow employed is discussed. The circuit is synthesized using the standard cell library in a 65 nm CMOS process, delivering a resolution of 9 ENOB over 10 MHz bandwidth according to post layout parasitic extracted simulations using the Spectre simulator. Post synthesis and post place-and-route performances are provided.