Patent ID: 8890735

Claim:
A multi-level sigma-delta Analog-to-Digital converter comprising: a direct path having an input terminal to receive an input analog signal and an output terminal to provide an output digital signal corresponding to said input analog signal, said direct path comprising: a computation block arranged to receive a first analog signal representative of the input analog signal and to provide an analog computed signal; a first order analog integrator having an input terminal operatively associated to the computation block to receive the analog computed signal and an output terminal to provide a third analog signal, a quantizer having a respective input terminal operatively connected to the output terminal of the first order analog integrator and a respective output terminal operatively connected to the output terminal of the direct path; a first amplification block interposed between said computational block and the input terminal of the quantizer; and a digital integrator block interposed between the output terminal of the quantizer and the output terminal of the converter, the digital integrator block being configured so that an output digital sample present at the output terminal of the direct path is added back directly at the output terminal of the quantizer; and a first feedback path arranged to provide to the computation block a feedback analog signal representative of a digital signal present at the output terminal of the quantizer, said computation block being arranged to subtract said feedback analog signal from the first analog signal so that the output digital sample present at the output terminal of the quantizer is subtracted from the first analog signal, said first feedback path comprising an amplification block having a respective gain factor, said first amplification block of the direct path having a respective gain factor which is the inverse of the gain factor of the amplification block of the first feedback path.