ADC Design & Testing

Testing and characterizing of Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) is still a challenging concern for real time mixed signal analysis, manufacturers and designers for consideration of factor like cost and time. The goal of such process is to validate in a short time whether a given ADC unite its performance requirements. ADC is an important device generally used in todays advanced communication and electronics applications like: microwave system, military applications, satellite communication and medical application for interfacing analog electronics with digital electronics. The ADC testing is mainly resolute by three technologies: linear stimulus generation, fast data capture and precision clock timing. The bottle neck analyzed in testing of recently high-performance ADCs is the linear signal generation, as the present need of technologies on timing and data capture can handle the testing need of upcoming ADCs. For current high-resolution ADCs, time for full-code INL and DNL test, which is directly related with the cost, is comparative long because of the large number of variables to be accurately measured.