Highly linear open-loop output driver design for high speed capacitive DACs

Design of a high speed output driver for capacitive digital-to-analog converters (SC DACs) is presented. As the output voltage swing of those DACs is usually greater than 300 mVpp the driver is designed for large signal operation that is a challenge in terms of the DAC linearity. Two non-linearity cancellation techniques are applied to the driver circuit, the derivative superposition (DS) and the resistive source degeneration resulting in HD3 <; -70 dB and HD2 <; -90 dB over the band of 0.5-4 GHz in 65-nm CMOS. For the output swing of 300 mVpp and 1.2 V supply its power consumption is 40 mW. For verification the driver is implemented in a 12-bit pipeline SC DAC. In simulations the complete Nyquist-rate DAC achieves SFDR of 64 dB for signal bandwidth up to 2.2 GHz showing a negligible non-linearity contribution by the designed driver for signal frequencies up to 1.3 GHz and a degradation by 3 dB at 2.2 GHz.

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