A new approach to improvement of pipeline A/D converters characteristics

The paper presents a new approach to improvement of pipeline A/D converters characteristics based on application of adaptive (iterative) estimation algorithms in pipeline A/D converters. Application of the proposed approach is possible in a new class of pipeline ADCs, coming from so called intelligent (adaptive) pipeline ADCs (AP ADCs). In these converters, codes (estimates) of the input sample are computed as binary words of the fixed length. The approach simplifies the architecture of converters which is related to diminishing their size, production costs and power consumption. It enables also improvement of the performance of pipeline ADCs and increase of achievable values of their effective number of bits. The results of selected simulation experiments related to analysis of operation of the modified pipeline ADCs and their comparison with known pipeline ADCs are discussed in the paper.