A 2.5 GS/s 14-bit D/A converter with 8 to 1 MUX**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61006027, 61176030), the Research Foundation of Key Laboratory of Analog Integrated Circuit (Nos. 9140C0902120C09034, 9140c090204130c09042), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (No. ZYGX2012J003).

Abstract

A 2.5 GS/s 14-bit D/A converter (DAC) with 8 to 1 MUX is presented. This 14-bit DAC uses a “5+9” segment PMOS current-steering architecture. A bias circuit which ensures the PMOS current source obtains a larger output impedance under every PVT (process, source voltage and temperature) corner is also presented. The 8 to 1 MUX has a 3 stage structure, and a proper timing sequence is designed to ensure reliable data synthesis. A DEM function which is merged with a “5-31” decoder is used to improve the DAC's dynamic performance. This DAC is embedded in a 2.5 GHz direct digital frequency synthesizer (DDS) chip, and is implemented in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology, occupies 4.86 × 2. 28 mm2 including bond pads (DAC only), and the measured performance is SFDR > 40 dB (with and without DEM) for output signal frequency up to 1 GHz. Compared with other present published DACs with a non-analog-resample structure (means return-to-zero or quad-switch structure is unutilized), this paper DAC's clock frequency (2.5 GHz) and higher output frequency SFDR (> 40 dB, up to 1 GHz) has some competition.