Tutorial: Simulation Techniques for Data Converter Design

ADC and DAC designers spend much time running long simulations that verify functionality and performance of their designs. Some converter designs contain many nominally identical cells (e.g. flash ADCs and current steering DACs). In some others the ratio of the sampling and signal frequencies is very high (oversampling ADCs). This tutorial, targeted at non-experts, will showcase some simulation techniques that are used in ADC/DAC designs. A brief overview of various architectures and examples involving behavioural and SPICE-like simulators will be given.