A 9 b/12 b 50 MS/s experimental ADC with continuous approximation architecture in 65 nm CMOS

A 9 bits 50 MS/s 0.5 mW continuous approximation mixed successive approximation (CAR&SAR) ADC is presented. A 12 bits 50 MS/s 0.6 mW CAR&CAR ADC is presented. In the field of low power and high performance ADC, CAR is a new architecture different from SAR. It is faster and easier to get high accuracy. Here we will introduce CAR and its circuit implementation, and the 9 bits experimental ADC is designed to verify CARADC's feasibility. Meanwhile, its resolution can be extended to 12 bits with adding an extra CAR, and then the performance is raised to 0.6 mW 50 MS/s 72 dB SNDR at TT corner and the Walden FOM is 3.6 fj/conv-step. The 9 b ADC was fabricated by using TSMC 1P9M 65 nm CMOS technology. The ADC achieves 50 dB SNDR and the realized Walden FOM is 34 fj/conv-step. The simulation and measurement results prove that CAR is available in the low power and high performance ADC and it even outperforms SAR. The ADC core occupies an active area of 0.045 mm2.