Smart and flexible digital-to-analog converters. (Q606890)

This is a very useful book on the state of the art in the field of digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) methods whose main aim is to advance the existing knowledge on efficient and robust high-performance current-steering DACs, and to investigate the concept of DAC flexibility. The authors focus on the accuracy and they stress DAC correction methods to achieve it and to provide high efficiency. The book is divided into five parts, each containing several chapters. The first part is introductory and offers basic aspects of DAC, such as functionality, resources, implementations and electric current-steering. Part two gives an overview on the up-to-date state in the domain of correction methods with attention paid to error correction by design and smart self-correcting converters. The third part deals with error modelling for DAC correction, analysis and modelling of DAC linearity, classification of error correction methods, and analysis of self-calibration of currents. Part four treats new methods and concepts such as a redundant segmentation concept, a method for self-calibration of currents, a redundant decoder concept, a high-level mapping concept, a harmonic distortion suppression concept, and a concept of flexible DAC. Finally, the fifth part of the book contains chapters on various design examples like those for a redundant binary-to-thermometer decoder, self-calibrating DAC, functional segmentation DAC using the harmonic distortion suppression method, a 14-bit quad core flexible 180 nm DAC platform, and a 16-bit core flexible 40 nm DAC platform. The book ends with three additional chapters: a brief summary chapter where important segments of the considered problems are stressed and highlighted, a chapter with conclusions, and an appendix giving data on main characteristics of published complementary metal-oxide semiconductor DACs from 1989 to 2009. The list of references contains 94 items, most of them published recently.