Thermo data-weighted average dynamic element matching (DEM) encoder for current-steering DACs

Abstract

A novel dynamic element matching (DEM) method is presented, called Thermo Data Weighted Average (TDWA) for Nyquist-rate current-steering digital-to-analog converts (DACs). The proposed TDWA encoder technique chooses a sequence of unit current sources and increase or decrease units at different side. Thus this approach can not only reduce the switching number to minimum (as few as thermometer encoder), but also retain good ability to eliminate signal dependent distortions to achieve good linearity at high sampling frequencies.