A wide-band 10-b 20 Ms/s pipelined ADC using current-mode signals

A 10-b pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented which makes extensive use of differential current-mode signals. The converter samples at 20 MHz and has an analog bandwidth exceeding 100 MHz. The architecture incorporates the design of a wide-bandwidth, fully differential current-in, current-out track-and-hold (T/H) amplifier differential flash A/D converters, and fully segmented D/A converters. A unique reference distribution technique allows precise trimming of the gains of the DACs and flash converters. The converter is built on a 2- mu m BiCMOS process with thin film resistors.>