A fast simulator for pipelined A/D converters

Abstract

A simulator for comprehensive analysis of pipelined A/D converters has been developed in MATLAB and compiled to an executable that can be run on various platforms. The simulator accepts user-specified parameters such as resolution per stage, number of stages, input and clock frequencies, input amplitude, op amp nonlinearity, capacitor mismatch, comparator offset, and clock jitter. The tool then provides the simulated performance in the form of residue plots, differential and integral nonlinearity profiles, output spectrum, and input-referred thermal noise. Compared with Cadence's Spectre, the proposed simulator runs several orders of magnitude faster while incurring a small error.