Compensation and Calibration Techniques for Current-Steering DACs

Digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are pervasive, critical components for radios and various signal processing systems. Therefore, a myriad of research efforts, covering architectural, circuit, and technological aspects have been made towards improving the performance of DACs. However, the quest to achieve stringent dynamic linearity requirements (>70 dBc SFDR ) over many gigahertz of bandwidth presents grand challenges to designers and high-yield manufacturers. In light of these challenges, various calibration and compensation techniques have evolved over the past two decades to overcome design and process technology variations and limitations.