Patent ID: 7271756

Claim:
A system for converting an input voltage VIN to a digital output, comprising: K linear flash-type analog-to-digital (A/D) converter apparatuses Z 1 , Z 2 , . . . , ZK respectively characterized by reference voltage step sizes ΔV 1 , ΔV 2 , . . . , ΔVK and respectively adapted to convert VIN into multibit strings S 1 , S 2 , . . . , SK, wherein ΔV 1 <ΔV 2 < . . . <ΔVK, and wherein K is greater than or equal to 2; and encoder means for applying multiplying or dividing at least a selected one of S 1 , S 2 , . . . , and SK by a value to generate the digital output, wherein the digital output has a sufficient number of bits to preserve the accuracy that is contained within S 1 , S 2 , . . . , and SK.