IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 38, NO.

7, JULY 2003

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Brief Papers_______________________________________________________________________________
A 0.5-V 1-W Successive Approximation ADC
Jens Sauerbrey, Doris Schmitt-Landsiedel, Member, IEEE, and Roland Thewes, Member, IEEE

AbstractA successive approximation analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented operating at ultralow supply voltages.
The circuit is realized in a 0.18- m standard CMOS technology.
Neither lowdevices nor voltage boosting techniques are used.
and ground
All voltage levels are between supply voltage
. A passive sample-and-hold stage and a capacitor-based
digital-to-analog converter are used to avoid application of
operational amplifiers, since opamp operation requires higher
values for the lowest possible supply voltage. The ADC has
signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratios of 51.2 and 43.3 dB for supply
voltages of 1 and 0.5 V, at sampling rates of 150 and 4.1 kS/s and
power consumptions of 30 and 0.85 W, respectively. Proper
operation is achieved down to a supply voltage of 0.4 V.
Index TermsAnalog-to-digital converters (ADCs), CMOS
analog integrated circuits, low power, low supply voltage, successive approximation, switched-capacitor circuits.

I. INTRODUCTION

N MODERN CMOS processes, the maximally allowed

is continuously decreasing, but the
supply voltage
of the devices is not scaled in proportion
threshold voltage
due to off-state currents and the related static power
to
consumption in logic circuits [1]. In the digital world, the
is usually acceptable, however,
increasing ratio of
for analog circuits, decreased signal swings and crucial design
values
restrictions result from that trend. In particular for
below the sum of the threshold voltages of n- and pMOSFETs
), only a very limited number of circuit topologies
(
is still usable.
Specific process options as provision of low- devices help
the analog circuit designer to overcome these constraints, but
lead to increased process complexity and to increased costs.
Adapted analog design approaches which avoid such options
but provide the same performance thus represent an attractive
alternative.
Switched opamp circuits [2][5], reset-opamp circuits [6],
and circuits using bootstrapping techniques [7], [8] have been
conditions
shown to be particularly suited under low
without specific process options. In the case of the latter design
technique, however, gate voltages are applied to part of the
so that enhanced device stress
devices which exceed
occurs.
Manuscript received November 25, 2002; revised February 21, 2003.
J. Sauerbrey and R. Thewes are with Infineon Technologies AG, Corporate
Research, D-81730 Munich, Germany (e-mail: jens.sauerbrey@infineon.com).
D. Schmitt-Landsiedel is with the Institute of Technical Electronics, Technical University of Munich, D-80333 Munich, Germany.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSSC.2003.813217

Fig. 1. Successive approximation converter architecture.

In this paper, a successive approximation analog-to-digital

converter (ADC) technique based on another approach is presented which is suitable for medium-speed/medium-resolution
converters. Similar to switched-opamp or reset-opamp circuits,
this ADC is designed in a way that only reference voltages are
switched. Contrary to switched-opamp or reset-opamp circuits,
ratio of about
which work well down to a minimum
1.5, the proposed circuit is able to be operated even at much
ratios. This is achieved using an opamp-free arlower
chitecture, a capacitor-based digital-to-analog converter (DAC),
and a passive sample-and-hold (S&H) stage.
The test circuit is realized to investigate the minimum supply
voltage for ADCs using standard digital transistors. All voltage
levels are inside the supply voltage range, and bootstrapping
techniques are avoided. The circuit is based on existing lowvoltage components from other work [5], [9]. The maximum
clock frequency at a given supply voltage is determined by design requirements of these components for their original purpose. Bandwidth optimization has not been performed in this
work, i.e., the reported data do not necessarily represent the
maximally achievable sampling rates.
II. CONVERTER PRINCIPLE
A. Basic Principle of Successive Approximation Converters
In Fig. 1, the basic architecture of a successive approximation ADC is shown. The converter consists of a S&H stage, a
comparator, a successive approximation register (SAR), and a
DAC. Using a binary search algorithm, the DAC output voltage
successively approximates the sampled input voltage
.
In each clock cycle, one bit of the digital output signal is obtained.
B. Successive Approximation Converter Based on a Charge
Redistribution Principle
In Fig. 2, a converter based on a charge redistribution principle is depicted. Binary weighted capacitors are used for the
DAC. The S&H function is realized by the DAC itself. The
switching point of the comparator is independent of the value of

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TABLE I
CAPACITOR VALUES

Fig. 2. Successive approximation architecture based on a charge redistribution

principle.

Fig. 4. Comparator circuit.

Fig. 3. Modified architecture.

III. CIRCUIT IMPLEMENTATION

the input signal. During conversion, at the comparator input posreferred to analog ground occur,
itive and negative voltages
whose magnitude is continuously decreasing with the number of
conversion steps performed within a complete conversion cycle.
Consequently, at the end of the conversion cycle, i.e., when
highest precision is demanded, both comparator inputs are operated near analog ground.
To avoid leakage currents at switch , analog ground should
and
. On the other
be adjusted in the middle between
hand, switch operation at ultralow supply voltages (e.g., under
conditions) is only possible if the
or
.
dc level of the signal to be switched is close to
Since theses requirements cannot be fulfilled simultaneously,
the approach shown in Fig. 2 is not suitable for ultralow voltage
applications.

A. Capacitor Array
in Fig. 3 are realized as multiples of
The capacitors
a unit capacitor of 20 fF. The chosen values result from the
fact that approximately 10 pF are needed to guarantee the 9-bit
linearity requirement, further, 10 pF are required to realize the
. Since small differences of the value of
shunt capacitor
referred to the value of capacitances provided by the capacitor
array only result in a small gain error but do not affect the linis realized as a nonsubdivided large-area device for
earity,
9-bit mode operation. In the 8-bit case, the shunt capacitor is
and
from the 9-bit version in
obtained by connecting
parallel (Table I).
The 9-bit mode is used when the supply voltage is large
enough for proper S&H and comparator function for a max. For smaller values of
, the
imum input voltage of
8-bit mode is used.

C. Modified Successive Approximation Converter

B. Comparator

A modified architecture using a capacitor-based DAC is

shown in Fig. 3. The DAC simply tracks the sampled ADC
.
and
are used as reference levels.
input signal
is operated as a capacitive divider to
A shunt capacitor
adjust the signals according to the low supply voltage operating conditions of the circuit. Corresponding to 9- or 8-bit
or
is chosen as input voltage range
operation,
in all cases. This
here. Minimum input voltage equals
adjustment guarantees proper comparator operation as well as
proper S&H operation within the whole input voltage range.
In this architecture, the S&H function is no longer realized
by the capacitor array itself as in Fig. 2. A passive S&H stage is
used here. This is sufficient as the load of the S&H stage only
consists of the MOSFET gate capacitance of the input transistor
of the comparator. An advantage of this approach is that the
input capacitance of the whole converter is not determined by
the DAC capacitor array.

The comparator is designed as a simple regenerative resetable

circuit (Fig. 4) [3] followed by inverters for signal level recovery. The input common-mode voltage range is between 0 V
or between 0 V and
, respectively (cf. Secand
tion II-C). The bias current is provided by an external resistor.
V, a current of approximately 0.3 A results
At
in the comparator input stage. Depending on the comparator
input signal, under this condition the pMOS input transistors
values between 46 and 113 mV.
are operated at
Although these transistors are not operated in strong inversion
conditions, reasonable sampling rates are
under ultralow
obtained (cf. Fig. 12) since only small capacitive loads have to
be driven by this subcircuit.
C. Successive Approximation Register
The SAR is realized in static CMOS logic. The related logic
circuit block also generates the clock signals for the comparator

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Fig. 5. Sample-and-hold circuit.

Fig. 7. Measured INL and DNL in 9-bit mode at V

Fig. 6.

= 1 V.

Chip photograph.

and the S&H circuit. All clock signals are derived from an externally provided master clock.
D. S&H Circuit
The S&H circuit block diagram is given in Fig. 5. The samprovided by the SAR is divided by two and a
pling clock
nonoverlapping two-phase clock is generated. Both signals are
provided in complementary form to control the nMOS switches
and the related nMOS dummy switch devices. The sampling caand
are alternately operated in sample and in
pacitors
hold operation.
The operating point of the switch transistors determines the
minimum settling time. At low supply voltage these transistors
are no longer operated in strong inversion when switched ON.
However, a relaxation of the impact of this operating condition
is obtained due to the fact that the sampling frequency is an order
of magnitude lower than the operating frequency of the comparator. Moreover, the switching frequency is two times lower
compared to the sampling frequency since two time-interleaved
sampling paths are used.
The sampling capacitors are not integrated on-chip here since
the main goal of this work was to investigate the DAC core
behavior. We use relatively large values of 47 pF in our case
in order to suppress packaging- and bondwire-related artifacts
(i.e., crosstalk between the sampling paths which is caused by
the discrete assembly of the sampling capacitors, and the related
capacitive coupling between bondwires and between package
pins). Integration of these capacitors on-chip allows to significantly decrease their value, as will be discussed in more detail
in Section IV-C.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The ADC is fabricated in a standard 0.18- m n-well CMOS
process with a single poly layer, four metal layers, and a
metalinsulatormetal capacitor (MIMCAP) option. The
threshold voltages are 0.43 V for the nMOS and 0.38 V for
the pMOS device. A chip photograph is shown in Fig. 6. Chip
area is 0.11 mm .

Fig. 8. Measured FFT spectrum at V

= 0:5 V, 200 Hz input signal
frequency, 0.125 V input signal swing, and 4.1 kS/s sampling rate (8-bit mode,
C
= 47 pF).

Fig. 9. Measured FFT spectrum at V

= 1 V, 6.4 kHz input signal
frequency, 0.5 V input signal swing, and 150 kS/s sampling rate (9-bit mode,
C
= 47 pF).

A. Static Measurements
Fig. 7 shows measured data of the integral nonlinearity (INL)
and the differential nonlinearity (DNL) in the 9-bit mode at
V. To evaluate these parameters in the 8-bit mode,
it is sufficient to consider only the codes from 1 to 256 in these
diagrams.
B. Dynamic Measurements
Fig. 8 shows a full-scale 200-Hz sine-wave spectrum meaV at a sampling rate of 4.1 kS/s in the
sured at

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Fig. 10. SNDR versus input frequency at V

4:1 kS=s, V = 0 dB (0.125 V), 3, 6, 10,
mode, C = 47 pF).

= 0:5 V, sampling rate =

0 0 0 020, 030, and 040 dB (8-bit

Fig. 11. SNDR versus input frequency at V

150 kS=s, V = 0 dB (0.5 V), 3, 6, 10,
mode, C = 47 pF).

Fig. 12.

Maximum sampling rate and power dissipation versus supply voltage.

Fig. 13.

SNDR versus supply voltage (C

= 47 pF).

= 1 V, sampling rate =

0 0 0 020, 030, and 040 dB (9-bit

8-bit mode. In Fig. 9, a 6.4-kHz sine-wave spectrum measured

V at a sampling rate of 150 kS/s in 9-bit mode is
at
depicted.
Signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio (SNDR) versus sinusoidal input frequency at input levels between 0 and 40 dB
is shown in Figs. 10 and 11 at supply voltages of 0.5 and 1 V,
respectively.
Fig. 12 shows the maximum sampling rate and the related
power dissipation as a function of supply voltage. The sampling
rate decreases with a moderate slope from 150 to 34 kS/s for
supply voltages from 1 to 0.6 V. For smaller supply voltages, the
drop of the sampling rate is more pronounced. The maximum
clock frequency is determined by malfunction of the digital circuitry, proven by incorrect codes at higher clock rates.
is shown in Fig. 13. A
Measured SNDR as a function of
reasonable SNDR value under 9-bit mode operation is obtained
down to a supply voltage of approximately 0.6 V. In 8-bit mode,
the circuit shows proper operation down to a supply voltage of
0.4 V. There, an SNDR of 38.9 dB at a sampling rate of 0.6 kS/s
is achieved.
Characterization is performed at room temperature using
eight bonded samples from one wafer with typical process
parameters. Measured results of all chips are very similar;
differences in linearity are smaller than 0.2 LSB and deviations
of the maximum clock frequency are less than 2%. Measured
data are summarized in Table II.

TABLE II
MEASURED ADC PERFORMANCE

C. Scaling of Sampling Capacitors

In this section, we estimate the impact of the value of the
when realized on-chip. The parasitic
sampling capacitors
packaging- and bondwire-related artifacts briefly discussed in
Section III-D are most prominent at high frequencies within the
specified bandwidth, so that, in general, ADC characterization is
performed using large values of the externally realized sampling
pF) to suppress these effects.
capacitors (
These parasitic effects do not show under operation with lowfrequency input signals. Fig. 14 shows SNDR versus sinusoidal
input frequency at input levels between 0 and 40 dB at
V using a sampling capacitor of 5 pF. The degradation of
the SNDR at high frequencies is obvious. At low frequencies,
however, only minor deviations compared to the data obtained
pF (Fig. 10) are obtained.
with
Fig. 15 shows the low-frequency SNDR as a function of the
used sampling capacitor value for supply voltages of 1 and 0.5 V,

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= 0:5 V, sampling rate =

0 0 0 020, 030, and 040 dB (8-bit

Fig. 14. SNDR versus input frequency at V

dB (0.125 V), 3, 6, 10,
: kS=s, V
mode, C
pF).

=0
=5

41

Fig. 16.

Figure of merit versus supply voltage (C

= 47 pF).

[10][12]. As a consequence of the converter principle, the resolution of all converters is of similar range. Concerning the minimum supply voltage however, in this work the lowest value by
far is achieved.
V. CONCLUSION

Fig. 15.

A successive approximation converter suitable for operation

at ultralow supply voltage is realized in a standard 0.18- m
CMOS technology using transistors with threshold voltages of
approximately 400 mV and avoiding bootstrapping techniques.
Test results indicate that the circuit is well suited for operation far below 1 V. Proper operation is shown down to a supply
voltage of 0.4 V, which is approximately equal to the threshold
voltages of the devices used.

Low-frequency SNDR versus sampling capacitor value C .

respectively. Approximately 3-dB loss is measured for a samvalue.

pling capacitor of 5 pF independent of the
This capacitance value corresponds well with simulated results. There, a decrease of 3 dB in resolution is predicted for
a sampling capacitor of 3.6 pF. Moreover, simulation reveals
that this loss in resolution is mainly determined by comparator
kickback noise. Note that distortion due to mismatch of the two
sampling capacitors is irrelevant here, as the comparator input
.
capacitance is much smaller compared to
On the basis of these measurements and simulations, we identify a reasonable value for on-chip sampling capacitors to be of
order 310 pF.

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D. Figure of Merit
As a commonly used figure of merit (FOM) for ADCs considering resolution, bandwidth, and power, we use
Sampling rate
FOM

REFERENCES

Power dissipation

(1)

FOM as a function of supply voltage is shown in Fig. 16 for

8-bit and 9-bit operation. The resulting curves show a maximum
in the range between 0.550.8 V, respectively. In this region, the
most effective operation is obtained for the used devices with
threshold voltages of about 400 mV. These data translate into a
ratio of supply voltage and threshold voltage between 1.4 and 2.
E. Comparison With Other Approaches
Also in Fig. 13, published data about low-voltage successive approximation converters from the literature are considered

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