Thermal noise limits — ΔΣ vs. pipeline ADCs

High-dynamic-range ADCs such as ΔΣ ADCs consist of cascaded gain stages. Each gain stage is impedance scaled to minimize the power consumption for a given input referred noise requirement. In sub-optimal systems, first-stage generally occupy a major portion of the power consumption as a result of the scaling. In this talk, a framework to compare high-dynamic range ADC architectures with regards to the power consumption and the noise contribution is proposed. ADC architectures including feedback, feedforward, MASH ΔΣ ADCs and pipeline ADCs both in discrete-time and continuous-time implementations are compared using the framework.