A Clock-Less 10-bit Pipeline A/D Converter for Self-Triggered Sensors

In this paper a novel 10-bit pipeline A/D converter for low noise, self-triggered sensors is presented. The main innovative feature of the proposed A/D structure is the concept that a pipeline ADC may behave as a combinatorial logic and may operate without any timing signal (clock) in order to produce the conversion (assuming that a sampled signal is provided at the input). This concept is validated by the experimental results here reported. A prototype ADC has been fabricated in a standard 0.35mum CMOS technology, has an active area of 2.24mm
²
, provides a conversion in 2.5mus (400kS/s) and consumes 14mW from a 2.3V power supply