1.3: MDAC design considerations - Capacitor matching/linearity From equations (3.1)-(3.3) it is clear stage gain is determined by the ratio of capacitors C1 and C2. Thus to ensure a gain which is at least 10-bit accurate, C1 and C2 must match to at least 10-bit accuracy or within 0.1% for the first stage in the pipeline. To obtain at least 0.1% matching a high quality capacitor such as a Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) capacitor must be used. If properly designed in layout, MIM capacitors can achieve matching between 0.01-0.1% [5]. MIM capacitors however are often unavailable in purely digital processes, necessitating alternative capacitor structures. Alternatively metal-finger capacitors, which derive their capacitance from the combination of area and fringe capacitance between overlapping metal layers can be used in digital processes to achieve sub 0.1% matching. Metal-finger capacitors however can have large absolute variation (>20%), thus require a conservative design approach. Alternatively a digital calibration algorithm can be employed to significantly minimize mismatch-induced gain errors (and finite opamp gain errors) [6], [7], [8], [9]. Due to additional design complexity, calibration schemes are beyond the focus of this dissertation. We note however that calibration techniques are emerging as essential approaches for high-resolution pipeline ADCs due to the relaxed accuracy constraints afforded.
In addition to capacitor matching, it is essential the ratio of capacitors C1 and C2 be linear for the desired input range to minimize harmonic distortion. Thus non-linear parasitic gate capacitance (MOS-caps), or other active capacitors should be avoided for C1 and C2 in high precision pipeline ADCs. Passive MIM, and metal-finger capacitors are linear well beyond the 10-bit level, thus are typically used.
The MDAC shown in Fig. 2 is a popular MDAC architecture, as the capacitor sizes of C1 and C2 are equal. Since C1=C2, identical layouts can be used for C1 and C2 - maximizing layout symmetry and hence maximizing accuracy. As MIM capacitors only have a marginal matching for 10-bit accuracy, a high degree of capacitor matching is essential to minimize INL/DNL errors. Another advantage of the architecture of Fig. 2 is a high beta value (feedback factor), which maximizes the bandwidth of the closed loop system [10]. |