An 11-b 100-MS/s Fully Dynamic Pipelined ADC Using a High-Linearity Dynamic Amplifier

Abstract

This article reports a high-linearity dynamic amplifier with a gain control technique for pipelined analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The wide input range and dynamic operation of the amplifier allow the ADC energy-efficient pipeline process. The voltage gain is controlled in the analog domain with digital gain correction codes, enabling simple compensation for process, voltage, and temperature variations. The proposed switching technique for the amplifier also defines a stable common-mode output without any dedicated hardware. An 11-bit 100-MS/s fully dynamic pipelined ADC using the open-loop dynamic amplifier is implemented without gain-linearity calibration. An ADC prototype is fabricated in a 28-nm CMOS process with an active area of 0.05 mm2, and the performances are measured at sampling rates in the range of 10–100 MHz. This ADC achieves a signal-to-noise and distortion ratio of 62 dB and a spurious-free dynamic range of 77 dB while consuming 1.33 mW of power at 100 MS/s. A Walden figure of merit of 10.8–13.1 fJ/conversion-step is achieved.