Statistical modeling of over-range protection requirement for a switched capacitor inter-stage gain amplifier

Over-range protection requirements for switched capacitor inter-stage amplifiers in pipelined analog to digital converters are investigated. Two popular inter-stage amplifier architectures, charge-redistribution and flip-around, are considered. Closed form expressions for the three sigma variation of the output trip point voltage levels of the amplifier transfer curve are given for both architectures. These expressions can be used for to determine the level of over-range protection required and to assist in allocation of error budgets to different pipeline blocks.