Belén Pérez Verdú

CMOS Cascade Sigma-Delta Modulators for Sensors and Telecom: Error Analysis and Practical Design starts with a tutorial presentation of the fundamentals of low-pass sigma-delta modulators, their applications, and their most common architectures. It then presents an exhaustive analysis of SC circuit errors with a twofold outcome. On the one hand, compact expressions are derived to support design plans and quick top-down design. On the other, detailed behavioral models are presented to support accurate verification. This set of models allows the designer to determine the required specifications for the different modulator building blocks and form the basis of a systematic design approach. The book is completed in subsequent chapters with the detailed presentation of three high-performance modulator ICs: the first two are intended for DSL-like applications, whereas the third one is intended for automotive sensors. CMOS Cascade Sigma-Delta Modulators forSensors and Telecom: Error Analysis and Practical Design contains highly valuable information that is structured to give the reader the necessary insight on how to design SC sigma-delta modulators.

CMOS Cascade Sigma-Delta Modulators for Sensors and Telecom: Error Analysis and Practical Design starts with a tutorial presentation of the fundamentals of low-pass sigma-delta modulators, their applications, and their most common architectures. It then presents an exhaustive analysis of SC circuit errors with a twofold outcome. On the one hand, compact expressions are derived to support design plans and quick top-down design. On the other, detailed behavioral models are presented to support accurate verification. This set of models allows the designer to determine the required specifications for the different modulator building blocks and form the basis of a systematic design approach. The book is completed in subsequent chapters with the detailed presentation of three high-performance modulator ICs: the first two are intended for DSL-like applications, whereas the third one is intended for automotive sensors. CMOS Cascade Sigma-Delta Modulators forSensors and Telecom: Error Analysis and Practical Design contains highly valuable information that is structured to give the reader the necessary insight on how to design SC sigma-delta modulators.

The interest for :I:~ modulation-based NO converters has significantly increased in the last years. The reason for that is twofold. On the one hand, unlike other converters that need accurate building blocks to obtain high res­ olution, :I:~ converters show low sensitivity to the imperfections of their building blocks. This is achieved through extensive use of digital signal pro­ cessing - a desirable feature regarding the implementation of NO interfaces in mainstream CMOS technologies which are better suited for implementing fast, dense, digital circuits than accurate analog circuits. On the other hand, the number of applications with industrial interest has also grown. In fact, starting from the earliest in the audio band, today we can find :I:~ converters in a large variety of NO interfaces, ranging from instrumentation to commu­ nications. These advances have been supported by a number of research works that have lead to a considerably large amount of published papers and books cov­ ering different sub-topics: from purely theoretical aspects to architecture and circuit optimization. However, so much material is often difficultly digested by those unexperienced designers who have been committed to developing a :I:~ converter, mainly because there is a lack of methodology. In our view, a clear methodology is necessary in :I:~ modulator design because all related tasks are rather hard.

The interest for :I:~ modulation-based NO converters has significantly increased in the last years. The reason for that is twofold. On the one hand, unlike other converters that need accurate building blocks to obtain high res­ olution, :I:~ converters show low sensitivity to the imperfections of their building blocks. This is achieved through extensive use of digital signal pro­ cessing - a desirable feature regarding the implementation of NO interfaces in mainstream CMOS technologies which are better suited for implementing fast, dense, digital circuits than accurate analog circuits. On the other hand, the number of applications with industrial interest has also grown. In fact, starting from the earliest in the audio band, today we can find :I:~ converters in a large variety of NO interfaces, ranging from instrumentation to commu­ nications. These advances have been supported by a number of research works that have lead to a considerably large amount of published papers and books cov­ ering different sub-topics: from purely theoretical aspects to architecture and circuit optimization. However, so much material is often difficultly digested by those unexperienced designers who have been committed to developing a :I:~ converter, mainly because there is a lack of methodology. In our view, a clear methodology is necessary in :I:~ modulator design because all related tasks are rather hard.