Metrological characterisation of analog-to-digital converters-a state of the art

The recent research on metrological testing of analog-to-digital converter-based measuring devices is analysed with the twofold aims of focusing both the contemporary situation and the imminent trends. Testing techniques are classified according to their dependence or not by the device architecture. In the former case, the studies on the most common dynamic tests, such as sine-fit, histogram, spectral analysis, and time base tests, are discussed. In the latter case, the research activities on the two extreme architectures with very-high resolution and very-high real-time sampling frequency are reviewed.