On the Static Resolution of Digitally Corrected Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog Converters With Low-Precision Components

This semi-tutorial paper considers the effect of component mismatch on the static accuracy of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with digital correction. First, it is noted that the effective static resolution of flash ADCs is not much reduced by component mismatch: with proper digital correction, the loss due to mismatch is only about 1.3 bit, virtually independently of the mismatch level unless the mismatch is very small. Second, it is noted that current steering DACs may actually benefit from component mismatch. Moreover, with proper digital correction, current steering DACs can achieve an effective static resolution of m bits with as few as m+2 near-unit low-precision current sources