Segmented Dynamic Element Matching for High-Resolution Digital-to-Analog Conversion

Dynamic element matching (DEM) is widely used in multibit digital-analog converters (DACs) to prevent mismatches among nominally identical components from introducing nonlinear distortion. It has long been used as a performance-enabling technique in delta-sigma data converters which require low-resolution but high-linearity DACs. More recently, segmented DEM architectures have made high-resolution Nyquist-rate DEM DACs practical. However, the previously published segmented DEM DAC designs have been ad hoc. Systematic techniques for synthesizing segmented DEM DACs and analyses of their design tradeoffs have not been published previously. This paper quantifies a fundamental power dissipation versus complexity tradeoff implied by segmentation and provides a systematic method of synthesizing segmented DEM DACs that are optimal in terms of the tradeoff.