High-performance data acquisition systems like digitizing oscilloscopes require both high sample rates and fine resolution, two competing requirements. A track-and-hold (TH) circuit is a key component of such systems. So far, there is no silicon bipolar TH IC for 1 Gsample/s with 8 b linearity. Even with modern GaAs processes this performance has not yet been surpassed. This TH is fabricated in a silicon bipolar production process, featuring a low component count, all-npn transistor design, 460 mW power consumption (excluding the test buffer), and less than 62.4 dB total harmonic distortion (THD), corresponding to 8.4 b linearity, up to 1.2 Gsample/s over the full Nyquist band. This TH is suitable as an on-chip subcomponent for 1 Gsample/s 8 b silicon integrated analog-to-digital converter (ADC) systems, such as full flash or pipeline ADCs.
[1]
H. Fu,et al.
A high-speed bipolar technology featuring self-aligned single-poly base and submicrometer emitter contacts
,
1990,
IEEE Electron Device Letters.
[2]
R. Petschacher,et al.
A 10-b 75-MSPS subranging A/D converter with integrated sample and hold
,
1990
.
[3]
R. Blauschild.
An 8b 50ns monolithic A/D converter with internal S/H
,
1983,
1983 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers.
[4]
P. Vorenkamp,et al.
Fully bipolar, 120-Msample/s 10-b track-and-hold circuit
,
1992
.
[5]
T. Grave,et al.
System architecture and key components for an 8 bit/1 GHz GaAs MESFET ADC
,
1992,
GaAs IC Symposium Technical Digest 1992.