A minimal multibit digital noise shaping architecture

In this paper, we describe a new architecture applicable to multibit noise-shaping D/A conversion. Significant digital hardware savings are attained due to the inherent reduced bit width required for the data path in the noise shaper. In addition, the error cancellation is inherently accurate, since it is performed entirely in the digital domain. The architecture relies on the principle that only a few LSBs of an oversampled PCM digital signal need to be noise shaped in order to attain substantially the same performance as with an ordinary single stage or multistage architecture