A 6-bit 500MS/s CMOS A/D converter with a digital input range detection circuit

A low power 6-bit flash ADC that uses an input voltage range detection algorithm is described. In this work, four digital input voltage range detectors are employed and each input voltage range detector generates the specific clock signal only if the input voltage falls between two adjacent reference voltages applied to the detector. The specific clock signal generated by the detector is applied to turn the corresponding latched comparators on and the rest of the comparators off. This ADC consumes 68.82mW with a single power supply of 1.2V and achieves 4.9 effective number of bits for input frequency up to 1MHz at 500 MS/s. Therefore it results in 4.75pJ/step of Figure of Merit (FoM). The chip is fabricated in 0.13-um CMOS process.