Low-power, small-area 10 bit D/A converter for cell-based IC

A low-power, small-area, 10-bit D/A converter for cell-based IC and its design method are presented. An analytical design method which minimizes power dissipation and cell area of a current-cell D/A converter taking process variation into account is proposed. A 10-bit, 500-kHz D/A converter was implemented using the proposed method. A low power dissipation of 9.7 mW, a small area of 1.31 mm/sup 2/, and a differential non-linearity of /spl plusmn/1/8 LSB has been achieved using a 0.8-/spl mu/m CMOS process.