Histogram measurement of ADC nonlinearities using sine waves

This paper gives results concerning the measurement of differential and integral nonlinearity of ADC's using the histogram method with a sine wave input signal. We specify the amount of overdrive required as a function of the noise level and the desired accuracy and the number of samples required as a function of the desired accuracy, the desired confidence level, and the noise level. An analysis of the effect on the results of harmonic distortion of the applied signal is given. The error analysis assumes a mixture of coherent and random sampling rather than pure random sampling.>