A 12-bit 1-Gword/s GaAs digital-to-analog converter system

The circuitry for a 12-b 1-Gword/s digital-to-analog converter (DAC) IC is described. A DC linearity of ±1/8 LSB has been preserved with this all-depletion GaAs MESFET chip. Dynamic measurements in the frequency domain indicate nonlinearities of less than -62 dBc at a 1-GHz clock rate. The DAC uses a very fast FET analog current switch that exhibits sufficiently low leakage currents for a 12-b linearity. The limited on-chip matching capabilities require the precision DC currents to be generated external to the GaAs chip. A current-switching DAC that partitions the high-speed functions onto a single GaAs chip while the high-precision bit currents are realized off-chip is described. The GaAs chip contains 12 1-b cells, each of which switches an analog bit current into a single sampler circuit that is shared by all the switches. The sampler is used to increase the dynamic linearity in the DAC.