Patent ID: 7961125

Claim:
An apparatus for reduction of unwanted idle tones by dithering a digital signal in a multi-bit (M-bit, M>1) sigma-delta digital-to-analog converter (DAC), comprising: a sigma-delta multi-bit modulator having a digital signal input and a plurality of variable resolution outputs, the sigma-delta multi-bit modulator comprising: a digital loop filter, a plurality of random sequence generators, and a plurality of variable resolution quantizers, wherein the digital loop filter receives a digital signal at the digital signal input and converts the digital signal to L-bit digital words, each of the plurality of random sequence generators creates a plurality of random numbers N(n) in a sequence, where N(n) are random integer numbers between 1 and M, and each of the plurality of variable resolution quantizers reduces the L-bit digital words to N(n)-bit digital words and then adds zeros to the N(n)-bit digital words to form M-bit digital words, where M is greater than N(n) and M-N(n) least significant bits of the M-bit digital words are zeros; a plurality of multi-bit digital-to-analog converters (DACs), each of the plurality of multi-bit DACs having an analog output and a digital input coupled to a respective one of the plurality of variable resolution outputs from the sigma-delta multi-bit modulator; and an analog low pass filter having a plurality of analog inputs coupled to respective outputs of the plurality of multi-bit DACs.