Patent ID: 9432041
Filing Date: 2016-08-30
CPC Classification: H03M

Claim Text:
1. A method of calibrating a thermometer-code successive approximation register analog-to-digital (SAR-A/D) converter comprising an N bit -bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for outputting an N bit -bit output code, the DAC comprising a first subconverter having a plurality of N Th thermometer elements T j and a second subconverter having a plurality of N Bin binary-weighted elements, the plurality of thermometer elements T j defining the MSB bits of the N bit -bit code and the plurality of binary-weighted elements N bin defining the LSB bits of the N bit -bit output code, with the N bit -bit output code being equal to the sum of N BitTh and N BitBin where N Th =2 N BitTh and N BitBin is equal to N Bin =N BitBin , the method of calibrating comprising: determining an Integral Non-Linearity error value (ε where: E minimizing a maximum of the error value ε generating the output code according to the minimized error.