A Proposed Stability Characterization and Verification Method for High-Order Single-Bit Delta-Sigma Modulators

A characterization method for verifying stability and measuring the performance quality of arbitrary noise transfer functions for the delta-sigma modulator is presented. The method consists of first obtaining the maximum stable input range sweep in the pass-band. The variance estimate can then be used to make a sharper upper limit for maximum allowed input range. This can then be used to measure the global SNR performance in the pass-band. The proposed method enables us to make a comprehensive comparison between arbitrary noise transfer function designs and it can also be used to automate the design of noise transfer functions