Sigma-delta modulator with spectrally shaped feedback

This paper explores the use of finite-impulse response (FIR) filters in the feedback path of a low-pass sigma-delta modulator in order to combat some nonideal effects encountered in an analog implementation. In this approach, the filter corresponding to the first integrator is a lowpass filter which smoothes out the feedback waveform by attenuating the high-frequency quantization noise. This lowpass filtering decreases the power consumption of a switched-capacitor implementation and alternatively reduces the sensitivity to clock jitter in a continuous-time structure. A design methodology ensuring the stability of the system is presented. Theoretical analysis and simulations show that the FIR filters allow a continuous-time single-bit modulator to achieve the jitter performance of a comparable multibit modulator.