A Blind Calibration Technique to Correct Memory Errors in Amplifier-sharing Pipelined ADCs

We present a statistics-based blind calibration technique for nonlinear memory errors in amplifier-sharing pipelined ADCs. The proposed method is fully digital and simple to implement. It detects memory errors in normal operation without system suspension for calibration. No special calibration signal or analog circuitry is necessary. Algorithm description and simulation results are presented. The proposed technique improves the power efficiency of pipelined ADCs by enabling sharing of low-gain operational amplifiers.