Concurrent Effect of Redundancy and Switching Algorithms in SAR ADCs

This paper analyses for the first time from a quantitative standpoint the effectiveness of redundancy in successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that employ the conventional and monotonic switching algorithms. It is shown that the redundancy tolerance window is one-sided in the case of conventional switching algorithm, thus only underestimations of the input signal can be corrected. Conversely, the monotonic switching algorithm shows a symmetric tolerance window that allows the correction of both underestimations and overestimations of the input signal. Thermal noise due to switches and comparator, and supply bouncing cause both these errors and they can be effectively corrected only with a symmetric redundant window. Behavioral simulations confirm that the monotonic switching algorithm applied to redundant SAR ADCs achieves better performance than the conventional one in terms of signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR).