A semiflash A/D ultra-fast conversion technique

An ultra-fast analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) technique, called semi-flash, is presented. The main feature of this technique is the fact that a comparator is needed for each bit wanted, i.e. N bits require N comparators. In flash, N bits require 2^N comparators and an encoding stage. The conversion rate of the proposed converter is compatible with flash. The resulting circuit has a bipolar NPN transistor and is small enough to be included in the MSI category