A Reusable Code-Based SAR ADC Design With CDAC Compiler and Synthesizable Analog Building Blocks

Abstract

This brief proposes a code-reusable design methodology for synthesizable successive approximation register (SAR) ADCs based on the digital design flow to significantly reduce design effort. The SAR ADCs are composed of a capacitor-DAC (CDAC) macro cell generated by a CDAC compiler and analog functional blocks implemented utilizing digital standard cells. Two prototypes of SAR ADCs (12-bit 100 kS/s and 11-bit 50 MS/s) are fabricated in different CMOS processes (180 nm and 28 nm). The prototype ADCs prove the effectiveness of the proposed design methodology with comparable performances with full-custom designed SAR ADCs.