The invention discloses a successive approximation type analog-to-
digital converter and a three-level switching method thereof. The method comprises the steps that input signals VIP and VIN are compared N times to obtain an N-bit digital code, the N-bit digital code is divided into a sampling stage and a conversion stage, and in the sampling stage, the input signals VIP and VIN are connected to top polar plates of an upper
capacitor array and a lower
capacitor array through sampling switches respectively, and the bottom polar plate of each
capacitor is connected to a corresponding
voltage; inthe conversion stage, the
comparator performs MSB bit-to-LSB bit comparison on the voltages of the top
electrode plates of the upper capacitor array and the lower capacitor array to obtain corresponding digital codes, and the connection relation of the capacitor bottom
electrode plates in the capacitor arrays is controlled according to the digital codes; and comparing for N times is performed to obtain an N-bit digital code. According to the invention, the
voltage change of + / -Vref is generated on the top plate of the capacitor for the first time, so that the reference
voltage Vref of the capacitor array is reduced to half of the reference voltage Vref of a
common method. Compared with a traditional
switching algorithm, the method has the advantages that 99.79% of DAC
power consumption isreduced, 75% of
capacitance area is saved, common-mode level offset is only 0.5 LSB, and compromise of energy efficiency, area and common-mode level is achieved.