Spectral Impact of Mismatches in Interleaved ADCs

2026-03-25

AI Summary

This work addresses the spectral degradation in interleaved analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) operating at multi-GS/s rates, which arises from offset, gain, and timing mismatches among sub-ADCs. A concise yet accurate analytical model is developed to characterize how these mismatches shape the output spectrum, revealing the resulting spurious and image power distribution patterns. Innovatively, the study directly links mismatch-induced spectral interference to manufacturing yield and proposes an integrated methodology that combines spectral analysis, statistical modeling, and yield-driven specification derivation to optimize calibration step sizes. In a practical case study, the approach successfully determines the required calibration accuracy to meet a target yield, demonstrating both its effectiveness and engineering applicability.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Calibration & Uncertainty Quantification
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Optimization

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: On-Device user modeling, personalization, and recommendation
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Interleaved ADCs are critical for applications requiring multi-gigasample per second (GS/s) rates, but their performance is often limited by offset, gain, and timing skew mismatches across the sub-ADCs. We propose exact but compact expressions that describe the impact of each of those non-idealities on the output spectrum. We derive the distribution of the power of the induced spurs and replicas, critical for yield-oriented derivation of sub-ADC specifications. Finally, we provide a practical example in which calibration step sizes are derived under the constraint of a target production yield.

Problem

• Interleaved ADCs
• mismatches
• spectral impact
• offset
• timing skew

Innovation

• interleaved ADC
• mismatch analysis
• spectral spurs
• yield-oriented design
• calibration