Patent ID: 7737875
Filing Date: 2010-06-15
Classification: H03M

Abstract:
1. A flash analog-to-digital converter, comprising: a flash comparator portion to compare an input signal to 2 a time interpolating encoder to detect a difference in arrival time between a first comparison signal and a second comparison signal from among the binary valued comparison signals and, based on the difference, to generate a voltage interpolation signal capable of encoding a plurality of bins within the given least significant bit quantization level, and capable of identifying which of the bins corresponds to the input signal, wherein the time interpolating decoder includes at least one variable delay unit to delay, based on a feedback control signal, at least one of the first comparison signal and the second comparison signal prior to detecting said difference; a decoder to generate M-bit output data representing an M-bit quantization of the input signal, wherein M is an integer greater than N, based on the binary valued comparison signals and the voltage interpolation signal; a feedback control signal generator to generate the feedback control signal, the generator including a code density detector to detect a non-uniformity of a code density of the M-bit output data, wherein the generator generates the control signal based on the detecting.