Buffered oversampling analog-to-digital converter with improved DC offset performance

Abstract

The invention provides methods and apparatus for improving the direct current (DC) offset performance of an oversampling analog-to-digital (A / D) converter, including A / D converters that include an oversampling quantizer such as a single or multi-bit Δ-Σ modulator, successive approximation quantizer, flash quantizer, pipelined quantizer or other suitable oversampling quantizer. A customized buffer / amplifier may be inserted between an analog chopper and a signal processing chain. The customized buffer / amplifier is optimized for input noise and the signal chain compensates for poor DC performance. The result is a buffered analog-to-digital converter with both low input noise and very good DC accuracy.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] Converting a continuous-time analog signal to a discrete-time digital representation typically requires anti-alias filtering, sampling and quantization. An anti-aliasing filter ensures that analog input signal is properly band-limited prior to sampling. A sampler captures samples of the filtered input signal at discrete time intervals T=1 / Fs, where Fs is the sampling frequency. Sampling frequency Fs typically is selected as at least twice the bandwidth of the filtered analog input signal. A quantizer converts the samples to a discrete set of values. Conventional analog-to-digital (A / D) converters typically perform sampling and quantization, whereas separate discrete components or integrated circuits perform anti-aliasing. [0002] Oversampling A / D converters, in contrast, sample an analog input signal at a rate NFs that is many times greater than twice the bandwidth of the analog input signal. An oversampling converter typically includes an anti-alia...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an oversampling analog-to-digital converter that has reduced DC offset and offset drift and relatively high and constant input impedance.

[0016] It further is an object of this invention to provide an oversampling analog-to-digital converter that has reduced DC offset and offset drift and relatively high and constant input impedance, but that does not require a digital chopper stage.

[0017] It further is an object of this invention to provide an analog-to-digital converter that provides for the use of a low noise external amplifier / buffer while still maintaining exceptional DC accuracy for the overall converter.

[0018] In accordance with the principles of this invention, a user can optimize an A / D converter for the specific application required. The user can optimize the converter by inserting a customized buffer / amplifier between an analog chopper and a signal processing chain. The customized buffer / amplifier is optimized for input noise and the signal chain compensates for poor DC performance. The result is a buffered analog-to-digital converter with both low input noise and very good DC accuracy.

Problems solved by technology

Nevertheless, the non-ideal chopper amplifier switches contribute DC offset and offset drift proportional to the chopper frequency, which corresponds to the relatively high sampling frequency of the Δ-Σ modulator.

Although digital calibration techniques may be used to remove residual DC offset, such techniques are ineffective for correcting offset drift.

Such increases, however, require that the chopper frequency also must increase, which increases residual offset and offset drift.

For high accuracy oversampling converters (i.e., converters that evaluate the input signal at rates much higher than the conversion rate) this presents a difficult requirement.

However, in each of these proposed solutions that include an input buffer, a compromise is met between DC accuracy and input noise level.

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