Digital assistance for energy reduction in ADCs using a simple signal prediction algorithm

Abstract

With the adoption of new technology nodes q for analog circuits, different digital techniques have been designed to enhance their performance. Among the existing techniques, a promising approach is to adapt the circuit operation dynamically considering the application characteristics. In the field of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), typically this approach is carried out by taking advantage of application-dependent signal properties, hence their use is limited. In this work, a digital assistance technique for power reduction in ADCs is presented. By defining a reduced valid range for the next sample based upon the maximum possible change of the input signal between samples, the proposed algorithm reduces the mean energy consumption per conversion in a variety of ADC architectures, regardless of the application.