Split-based time-interleaved ADC with digital background timing-skew calibration

This paper presents a split-based time-interleaved (TI) ADC with digital background timing calibration for wideband applications. Each interleaved channel uses a split ADC, which adds a dimension for timing-skew error detection and correction. Thus, the complexity of digital post-processing is greatly relaxed without the use of any dummy channel. The behavioral simulations show a 28 dB and 35 dB improvements in signal-to-noise plus distortion (SNDR) and spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) respectively, after adopting the proposed timing skew correction for a 10-bit 4GS/s ADC example.