Using Triangularly Weighted Interpolation to Get 13-Bit PCM from a Sigma-Delta Modulator

We present and analyze a method of interpolation that improves the amplitude resolution of an analog-to-digital converter. The technique requires feedback around a quantizer that operates at high speed and digital accumulation of its quantized values to provide a PCM output. We show that use of appropriate weights in the accumulation has important advantages for providing finer resoution, less spectral distortion, and white quantization noise. The theoretical discussion is supplemented by the report of a practical converter designed especially to show up the strengths and weaknesses of the technique. This converter comprises a sigma-delta modulator operating at 8 MHz and an accumulation of the 1-bit code with triangularly distributed weights. 13-bit resolution at 8 kwords/s is realized by periodically dumping the accumulation to the output. We present a practical method for overcoming a thresholding action that distorts low-amplitude input signals.