A Single-Channel, 600-MS/s, 12-b, Ringamp-Based Pipelined ADC in 28-nm CMOS
 
A Single-Channel, 600-MS/s, 12-b, Ringamp-Based Pipelined ADC in 28-nm CMOS 
 
Jorge Luis Lagos Benites, Benjamin Hershberg, Ewout Martens, Piet Wambacq, Jan Craninckx
 
Abstract 

Achieving high linearity and bandwidth with good power efficiency makes the design of ADCs in deep nanoscale CMOS processes very challenging, as the constraints of low-voltage operation and limited intrinsic gain often dictate the use of power-consuming analog circuits and intensive digital calibration. This paper addresses these problems by introducing a pipelined ADC that exploits the low but very constant open-loop gain versus output voltage characteristic of the ring amplifier (ringamp) to achieve both high speed and linearity in low-voltage nanoscale CMOS designs. A tunable ringamp biasing scheme using an anti-parallel arrangement of CMOS transistors and an active ringamp-based common-mode feedback are also introduced. A single-channel prototype ADC is implemented in a standard 28-nm CMOS process, achieving 58.7-dB SNDR and 72.4-dB SFDR at 600 MS/s while consuming 14.5 mW from a single 0.9-V supply, resulting in Walden and Schreier figure-of-merit (FoM) values of 34.4 fJ/conv.-step and 161.9 dB, respectively.