Simulating and Testing Oversampled AnalogtoDigital Converters

Quantities such as peak error and integral or differential nonlinearity are commonly used to characterize the performance of analog-to-digital converters. However, these measures are not readily applicable to converter architectures that employ feedback and oversampling. An alternative set of parameters for characterizing the linear, nonlinear, and statistical properties of A/D converters is suggested, and a new algorithm, referred to as the sinusoidal minimum error method, is proposed to estimate the values of these parameters. The suggested approach is equally suited to examining the performance of A/D converters by means of either computer simulations or experimental measurements on actual circuits.