Understanding sigma delta ADCs : A nonmathematical approach

Mohit Khajuria, Prashant Goyal and L Gupta, Freescale - March 05, 2014

In this paper, we will attempt to explain sigma delta converters with a non-mathematical approach,
covering the basic concepts of noise shaping and oversampling, explained with the help of some
examples. These concepts along with digital decimation filters are later incorporated together to
reveal the magic behind sigma delta converters. This paper also covers the basics of first and second
order sigma delta ADCs and how the order of the sigma delta modulator impacts the performance of
the ADC.

Introduction

Nowadays, there are many applications that often require analog to digital converters with high
resolution but not with high accuracy and that calls for sigma delta ADCs. To understand sigma
delta converters, one has to dive into control loop theory with complex mathematics involved in the
frequency domain. But this article will try to make you understand very important concepts like
noise shaping, oversampling and the whole magic behind sigma delta modulators that differentiates
them from the rest of the converter architectures, avoiding as much mathematical complexities as
we can to give you a feel of visualizing things moving.

In order to understand sigma delta ADCs, it is imperative to first understand the basic concepts of
noise shaping and oversampling. Noise shaping is explained by using two analogies.

What is Noise shaping?: A general example

Lets say the price of one commodity is 9.9 rupees and you buy it for 10 days and the following is
the chart of the prices that the shopkeeper made you pay for it.

Everyday some error gets incorporated whether it is 0.1 or 0.5 but at the end of 10 days the price of
the commodity comes out to be exactly 9.9 rupees. This averaging out of the error is called noise
shaping.
But this can only happen if the shopkeeper keeps track of the error every day . So in order to track
the error, the system should have a memory.

Table 1 : Daily price of the commodity

Noise Shaping explained through a DAC

So what if our regular DAC involves noise shaping? We allow the DAC to shape the noise. We allow it
to give not just one number but two or three such that the average number is closer to ideal.

Figure 1: Regular DAC vs. noise shaped DAC in time domain

Figure 2: Noise shaped vs. regular DAC in frequency domain

As in Figure 1, if we actually follow the green pattern, we are moving the value up and down a little
bit. It looks like it is a terrible thing because we have added noise into this DAC . It is not even
holding the value steady. We have not introduced any new levels, they are already there in the
regular DAC.

Now look at the Fourier analysis of the two systems in Figure 2. Surprisingly, the green things which
we thought would hurt the performance actually made the DAC better. The noise in the region of
1KHz is lower in the noise shaped DAC as compared to the regular DAC, thus giving the better
representation of a1KHz signal.
Oversampling in general

Oversampling in general

Whenever the signal is sampled with frequency Fs with the assumption that the random variable of
the error process is associated with the quantization noise (which is uncorrelated with the signal);
then the error is a white-noise process, and quantization noise power (q/12, where q is 1 LSB) is
uniform up to Fs/2.

Figure 3 : Effect of oversampling

When oversampled by a factor of K, the same quantization noise power spreads uniformly up to
KFs/2 and thus quantization noise power reduces in the Fs/2 region.

Sigma delta converter with a magic trick to it

What can you determine from the next curve?

Figure 4 : Sigma delta (left) vs. a regular DAC/noise-shaped-DAC in frequency domain

(right)

Figure 4 (left) is hugely better than either of the two noise levels in Figure 4 (right) . Whatever this
system is on the left, it is going to give a better representation of a 1 KHz signal than either of other
two on the right.

What is that system?

Figure 5 : Sigma Delta modulators time domain signal (a) and normal approximated sine
wave (b)
Its not even a DAC here!! Its just a system giving a signal between +/- full scale and yet it has such
a low noise floor near to the signal frequency associated with it. How do we grasp that?

Well, Figure 5b is the output of the regular DAC. Where, at least we can see it as a sine wave. But
what about the Figure 5a? How is it able to give better representation of 1KHz signal?

Here lies the magic trick to this Sigma delta converter.

It has its answer in the basics of delta modulation. So, what is delta modulation?

Delta modulation (DM or -modulation) is an analog-to-digital or digital-to-analog signal

conversion technique used for transmission of voice information where quality is not of primary
importance. DM is the simplest form of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) where the
difference between successive samples is encoded into n-bit data streams. In delta modulation, the
transmitted data is reduced to a 1-bit data stream.

It works on a prediction algorithm. Take for a simple case, in that it predicts that the current sample
equals previous sample. It then compares the two, sends a + if input is bigger and a if it is
smaller and similarly at the receiver end it keeps a track of +/- , so that the system can very well
tell when the signals value increased and decreased thus able to reconstruct it. Although it has two
issues related to it, slope overload and granularity. But we will not go deep into this so that we can
focus more on this one key fact of sending error values, not actual values and still reconstruct the
input signal if it is a sine wave.

As in the shopkeeper example, the shopkeeper would have messed up with you more by charging 9
on first day, 9.5 on second day, 8 on the third, and 11 on fourth but could have arranged it so that
after 10 days you still pay 9.9 rupees for it. This randomization of error just shifts the noise to
higher frequencies resulting in good SNR ratio in the required bandwidth.
Sigma delta ADC: Noise shaping + oversampling
Sigma delta ADC: Noise shaping + oversampling

So now that we have understood the basic concepts of noise shaping and oversampling, lets
understand how a sigma delta modulator makes use of these concepts in order to excel in
comparison to other converters by providing better dynamic performance (high SNR).

Figure 6: Oversampling and noise shaping

Figure A: Quantization noise spread uniformly up to Fs/2

Figure B: Lets oversample by the factor of K; what is the impact? The same noise gets distributed
up to KFs/2 resulting in low noise up to Fs/2.

Figure C: Here we have noise shaping involved which results in shifting of the noise to higher
frequencies thus further reducing noise in the band of interest.

So the sigma delta converter basically reduces noise in the required bandwidth by noise shaping and
oversampling as shown in the above Figure 6.

Digital Decimation filter

Figure 7: Digital decimation filter

The single bit stream from the sigma delta modulator is output to a digital decimation filter that
averages down and then down samples, thus producing an N-bit sample at a desired sample rate, Fs.
The digital filter is a low pass filter that does averaging. It attenuates the quantization noise and
removes aliases from the band of interest. Generally the sinc transfer function is used as a low pass
filter.

The input signal is oversampled in order to reduce the quantization noise, therefore there is
redundant data that can be eliminated without introducing distortion. The decimation process simply
reduces the output sample rate while retaining the necessary information. A FIR filter with a sinc
transfer function is used to perform digital filtering with decimation.
First order and second order sigma delta ADC

First lets look at the basic functionality of a first order sigma delta ADC.

Figure 8: First order sigma delta ADC

In Figure 9, A is a fixed input 3VDC. B,C,D and E are the points in the signal path. The reference
voltage of the DAC is 8V.

Initially B,C,D,E are all 0. In each step the integrator is accumulating the error between the input
signal and the feedback signal which in turn is fed to the comparator which compares it to 0. During
the comparison the comparator introduces quantization noise in each step. The output of the
comparator goes into a 1-bit DAC which converts the digital signal into an analog voltage. Since the
DAC has a reference voltage of 8V, a 1 means 8V and a 0 means 0V. This output of the DAC is
again compared with the input signal.

Table 2: First order ADC

After 8 steps the pattern repeats itself. Thus we can see that the feedback mechanism forces the
feedback signal to become equal to the input voltage signal. In this loop the integrator acts as a
noise shaping filter and the comparator/quantizer introduces the quantization noise.

As we see in the Table 3, the 1s are there in the representation of 3V signal. The higher the value of
input signal, the more will be the number of 1s.
Second order sigma delta ADC
Second order sigma delta ADC

A second order sigma delta ADC is similar to a first order but with an additional integrator.

Lets have a look at a second order sigma delta modulator and see what the basic difference is
between the first and second order.

As seen in Table 3, the working mechanism of the second order sigma delta ADC is almost similar to
first order but with more randomized errors. In this case, six 1s are there in the representation of
3V in 16 steps, i.e. three in every 8 steps.

Figure 9: Second order sigma delta ADC

Table 3: Second order modulator

Whats the difference??

Basically due to more randomization of error, the second order system shifts the output noise to
higher frequencies, giving low noise in the required bandwidth but at the cost of more hardware .

So the higher the order is, the more will be the randomization of error and the less the noise in the
required bandwidth but all this comes at the cost of increased hardware.

Figure 10: Output noise of first order vs. second order sigma delta ADC
Summary

This article covers the basic theory behind sigma delta ADCs. It specifically focuses on
understanding key concepts like oversampling, noise shaping , decimation without any
mathematical interventions and also aims at better understanding of higher order sigma delta ADCs
.