Nonlinearity Analysis of Resistive Ladder-Based Current-Steering Digital-to-Analog Converter

This paper presents the nonlinearity simulation results for N-ary resistive ladder-based current-steering digital -to-analog converters (DACs) using the Monte-Carlo method. Differential nonlinearity (DNL) of the R-2R based current- steering DAC deteriorates due to the mismatch of both current sources and resistors. It is inferred that when an N-ary resistive ladder that divides the current into the non-binary ratio is used, its DNL standard deviation becomes the largest at the boundary codes of the ranges divided into N.