A 50-fJ 10-b 160-MS/s Pipelined-SAR ADC Decoupled Flip-Around MDAC and Self-Embedded Offset Cancellation

This paper presents a time-interleaved pipelined-SAR ADC with on-chip offset cancellation technique. The design reuses the SAR ADC to perform offset cancellation, thus saving calibration costs. The inter-stage gain of 8 is implemented in a 6-bit capacitive DAC with a flip-around operation. A capacitive attenuation used in both the first and second DACs significantly reduces the power dissipation and optimizes conversion speed. The detailed circuit implementation of the subthreshold op-amp is discussed, and the possible limits caused by nonidealities are analyzed for a proper correction in the design. These include the inter-stage-gain error and various channel mismatches of offset, gain, and timing. Measurements of a 65-nm CMOS prototype operating at 160 MS/s and 1.1-V supply show an SNDR of 55.4 dB and 2.72 mW total power consumption.