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Abstract— Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are becoming the testing cost as minimal as possible in order to keep the total
increasingly more common to be involved in most systems with cost of the product at a reasonable level. One solution to this
integrated circuits. One of the difficulties being faced is to be problem of testing large SoCs is to employ built-in-self-test
able to accurately and cost-effectively test the continually higher
performance of ADCs. A part of this test is being able to assess or BIST circuits. These BIST circuits can then internally test
the dynamic linearity of the ADC through dynamic spectral the different subblocks of the system more efficiently. Analog-
testing. The standard test method for ADCs can be difficult to to-digital converters (ADCs) are a very popular device in many
implement accurately and cost-effectively due to the stringent SoCs, as many of today’s applications rely on operating in
requirements. This paper develops an algorithm that relaxes the both the digital and analog domains, and the ADC is the
requirements on the linearity of the test signal and of the need
to achieve coherent sampling. The standard test requires that necessary bridge between these two. ADCs can also cause a
the input signal linearity be about 20 dB purer than the ADC big hurdle in testing to get a good accurate test; the data length
under test along with always maintaining coherent sampling. of the required data could be very large and thus take a long
This algorithm will reduce the purity requirement by allowing time to acquire as well as perform calculations on. Therefore,
the test signal to be less pure than the ADC under test while concentrating on the ADC device is an important area.
also completely removing the need for coherent sampling. The
proposed method will be able to test a 16-b ADC with a target There are two major areas of the ADC functionality that
total harmonic distortion (THD) of around −95 dB using a test need to be tested normally. First, the static parameters such
input signal that has a THD as bad as −50 dB. A test signal as the gain, offset, integral nonlinearity, and differential non-
with this level of purity would be easy to design as well as linearity (DNL). Second, dynamic parameters such as total
be easily accessible in most systems that are being designed. harmonic distortion (THD), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and
The accuracy and robustness of these methods are demonstrated
through simulation and measurement results. spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) [1], [2]. The dynamic
parameters are especially important in high-speed applications
Index Terms— Analog-to-digital converter (ADC), impure such as communication or audio applications. This paper is
source, noncoherent sampling, spectral testing.
focused on developing different algorithms that are focused
on the dynamic testing for a single tone test.
I. I NTRODUCTION The rest of this paper is arranged as follows. Section II
MAGSTADT et al.: ACCURATE SPECTRAL TESTING WITH IMPURE SOURCE AND NONCOHERENT SAMPLING 3
MAGSTADT et al.: ACCURATE SPECTRAL TESTING WITH IMPURE SOURCE AND NONCOHERENT SAMPLING 5
be used; it may just take extra work to be able to achieve a of the second filter. The signals after the two filters are
relatively good estimate of the transfer curve of the filter. given as
In order for the algorithm to realize the separation of har-
VF 1 (t) = |D1 H1 ( j ωo )|e j ωo nTS e j (φ1+ψ1 )
monics from the input source and harmonics from the ADC,
the output harmonics of the filters need to be significantly H
+ |Dk H1 ( j kωo )|e j kωo nTS e j (φk +ψk ) + w1 (t)
different. This can also be achieved with the simple example
k=2
of RR and RC filter. The corner frequency of the RC filter (15)
is designed to be the input frequency, and both RR and RC j ωo nTS j (φ1 +δ1 +ϕ1 )
are designed to have the same output fundamental amplitudes. VF 2 (t) = |D1 H2 ( j ωo )|e e
They are easy to implement, and they have different responses H
at harmonics of interest. In addition, if the filter losses are + |Dk H2 ( j kωo )|e j kωo nTS e j (φk +kδ1 +ϕk ) + w2 (t).
k=2
too large, the information about the source harmonics will be
(16)
lost. This can be solved by a proper filter design. √ For the
RR attenuator, the attenuation ratio is fixed to 2 for both After the filters, the signals will pass through the ADC. This
the fundamental and harmonics; for the RC filter, the losses at will then add to the extra nonlinearities from the ADC. The
harmonics of interest are not too large as it is a first order low- amplitudes of these added nonlinearities are given by the
pass filter with fundamental frequency at its corner frequency; variable C and the phase by γ . The initial phase of the added
and for the kth harmonic amplitude, they follow the attenuation nonlinearities will be directly related to the fundamental’s
of (1 + k 2 )1/2 . This will ensure enough information at the phase
harmonics of interest for the algorithm to estimate the source Vout1 [n] = |D1 H1( j ωo )|e j ωo nTS e j (φ1+ψ1 ) + w1 [n]
harmonics.
H
The last requirement is that the components used in the filter + |Dk H1( j kωo )|e j kωo nTS e j (φk +ψk )
cannot add any extra nonlinearities to the signal. If the two k=2
filters add different nonlinearities to the input signal that is at
H
a level relative to the ADC’s nonlinearities, then the proposed + |Ck |e j kωo nTS e j (kφ1 +kψ1 +γk ) (17)
algorithm will not be able to produce accurate results, as the k=2
algorithm cannot take this into account.
Vout2 [n] = |D1 H2( j ωo )|e j ωo nTS e j (φ1 +δ1 +ϕ1 ) + w2 [n]
H
C. Signal Derivation + |Dk H2( j kωo )|e j kωo nTS e j (φk +kδ1 +ϕk )
Before deriving the individual nonlinearities of the ADC and k=2
signal generator, it is necessary to derive what the two signals H
will look like when they are out of the sampled ADC. For these + |Ck |e j kωo nTS e j (kφ1 +kδ1 +kϕ1 +γk ) . (18)
derivations, all the signals are assumed either to be coherent or k=2
corrected by the noncoherent correction algorithm. The signal The actual measurement output out of the ADC can be
starts with two different signals being originally generated comprised of a fundamental and a harmonics, given by (19)
by an impure source. Equations (13) and (14) represent the and (20). The two different outputs can be represented by
two signals directly out of this impure signal generator. The the two functions below with the amplitudes and phases.
variable D represents the amplitude of the fundamental and These values can be accurately acquired given that either
harmonics out of the impure source and the variable φ rep- the original signal was coherently sampled, or the nonco-
resents the phase of these different components. The variable herent fix algorithm was applied on the output codes of
δ1 represents the phase difference of the fundamental between the ADC
the two different signal passes and w is additive noise of the
H
signal. This is necessary as it may not be possible to start both Vout1 [n] = |M1 |e j ωo nTS e j α1 + |Mk |e j kωo nTS e j αk + W1 [n]
the signal passes at exactly the same time without any added k=2
difficulty (19)
H
H
x 1 (t) = |D1 |e j ωo nTS e j φ1 + |Dk |e j kωo nTS e j φk + w1 (t) Vout2 [n] = |N1 |e j ωo nTS e jβ1 + |Nk |e j kωo nTS e jβk + W2 [n].
k=2 k=2
(13) (20)
x 2 (t) = |D1 |e j ωo nTS e j (φ1 +δ1 ) D. Nonlinear Algorithm Derivation
H
Now that the signals coming out of the ADC are derived and
+ |Dk |e j kωo nTS e j (φk +kδ1 ) + w2 (t). (14)
known, it is possible to begin the derivation of the nonlinear
k=2
algorithm. The first step is to be able to calculate the initial
After the signals are generated, then they will each separately angles. This can be accomplished using (21) and (22)
pass through their respective filters. This will apply the ampli-
tude and phase response of the filters to both the signals. ψ is φ1 = α1 − ψ1 (21)
the phase response of the first filter and ϕ is the phase response δ 1 = β 1 − φ1 − ϕ 1 . (22)
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
MAGSTADT et al.: ACCURATE SPECTRAL TESTING WITH IMPURE SOURCE AND NONCOHERENT SAMPLING 7
TABLE I
S PECTRAL S PECIFICATIONS OF ADC U NDER T EST (F IRST RUN )
TABLE II
S PECTRAL S PECIFICATIONS OF S IGNAL G ENERATOR (F IRST RUN )
Fig. 9. Plot showing the harmonic power estimation error versus the signal
generator’s THD.
TABLE III
S PECTRAL S PECIFICATIONS OF ADC U NDER T EST (S ECOND RUN ) noise power. For example, if the number of harmonics used
to calculate THD is 14, in spectrum, a total of 14 har-
monic bins are used. With a total noise power of PNoise , the
noise power in these 14 bins in the decibel scale should be
10 log(PNoise × (14/M)). The same ADC is used as in the
previous examples, so the THD is at the −94 dB level. The
parameter that will be swept then is the THD of the signal
TABLE IV generator source. This is done by randomly generating differ-
S PECTRAL S PECIFICATIONS OF S IGNAL G ENERATOR (S ECOND RUN ) ent signals with different levels of purity, whose harmonics
amplitudes are randomly generated within a given range, and
the phases are randomly generated from 0 to 2π. There are
a total of 10 000 randomly generated simulations. The results
of this can be seen in Fig. 9. Accurate results are achieved
until the THD of the signal generator reaches levels that are
worse than the −50 dB level. This shows that the algorithm is
a signal generator that is about 10 dB worse than the ADC robust to the signal generator’s purity as bad as the −50 dB
under test. The second run still has accurate results, even with level for THD. This level of purity in a test signal will be easy
a signal generator whose purity is 45 dB worse than the ADC to achieve.
under test.
The robustness of the proposed algorithm is also to be C. Robustness: Noise
verified. There are several parameters that could affect the The amount of noise in a system can directly affect the
performance of the algorithm: input signal purity level, noise, accuracy of different measurements. This is especially true
and level of coherency. If the filter is not approximately for high-precision ADCs. When the noise level becomes too
known, this could also cause some error. However, since high, the noise power can influence the estimation of the
passive components will normally have a large variation in the harmonics’ power. This will lead to incorrect characterization
value, it is better to use the filter characterization proposed in of the spectral performances of the ADC. Therefore, it is
this section in order to have good estimation, even if large important to see how robust a method is to different levels of
component variation does exist in the filter. noise. In this discussion, the noise level should be around the
same magnitude as the value of the ADC’s LSB. A simulation
B. Robustness: Input Signal Purity of the harmonic power estimation can be seen in Fig. 10.
The first characteristic that will be used in order to test In these simulations, the same ADC with a THD of −94 dB
the robustness of the proposed algorithm is the purity level was used with a sampled data set size of 215 . Therefore,
of the input signal. Harmonics power estimation is used to to achieve high accuracy results, it can be shown that only
evaluate the robustness of the proposed method. The accuracy up to around a few LSBs of noise should be present in
of estimation is quantified by the difference between the the measurement system in order to achieve highly accurate
estimated total harmonics harmonic power hdest and the true results. With more noise the results will still be fairly accurate,
total harmonics harmonic power hd, obtained by the standard but at 10 LSBs of noise the error starts to approach the same
method: 10 log(hdest − hd). In the standard measurement, magnitude as the measurement itself. These low levels of noise
the tested distortion power will unavoidably include some to maintain the accuracy is achievable in realistic test setups.
noise power. Then we can compare the difference between In addition, the red curve represents the noise power included
the proposed and the standard distortion powers against this in the same number of bins, which serves as a reference.
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
Fig. 10. Plot showing the harmonic power estimation error versus the added
noise power in LSBs.
V. M EASUREMENT R ESULTS
To further validate the proposed algorithm, it was necessary
to produce measurement results to achieve similar accurate
results. Signal generators, such as DAC7631, DAC8831, Audio
Precision AP2700, and ADCs, such as ADS8321, ADS9110,
LTC2389, were also used in the measurement to verify the
proposed method. As all the measurements look similar, only
one set of measurement result is presented.
A printed circuit board (PCB) test board was designed
and created to collect the data required in order to verify the
algorithm with the measurement results. The created PCB
Fig. 11. Plot showing the harmonic power estimation error versus the test board can be seen in Fig. 12. The test board includes a
value of δ. 16-b Successive approximation register ADC which will be
the ADC under test. For the signal generator, a DAC will be
It can be seen that the results are at the same level of used in order to generate an impure sine wave. This will then
the reference line, which indicates that the accuracy of the be filtered by two different filters: 1) RR attenuator with two
proposed method is only limited by the noise. 20-k resistors and 2) RC filter with a 20-k resistor and a
5-nF capacitor. For this board two low-pass filters were used.
D. Robustness: Coherency They each have a different dc gain and corner frequency, so
that the requirement of having the same amplitude response at
One of the goals of this algorithm was to completely remove
the testing frequency can still be achieved. On this test board,
the coherent sampling condition from the test setup. Coherent
the output of the DAC is first passed through an inverting
sampling is achieved by having an exact integer number of
operational amplifier configuration, so that it will be able to
cycles of the sine wave. This integer is given by Jint, and the
drive the filters easily. Then after the filters, another inverting
total number of cycles is given by J . The difference between
operational amplifier configuration is used to drive the signal
these two values is then given by δ. This relationship can be
into the ADC to be digitized.
seen as
There are different parts of this board that need to be
J = Jint + δ. (27) emphasized. The first is that the filter portion of the test
board should not add any additional nonlinearities. To accom-
The value of δ has a major effect on the output spectrum. If the modate this, high-performance ceramic NP0 capacitors and
value is close to zero, or close to coherent, there will be less high-performance thin film resistors are used for the passive
of a skirting effect than if this value is farther away from zero. components in the filters. The switches that are used are also
Therefore, it is good to ensure that this value does not have important as they could also generate other nonlinearities.
a large effect on the measurement results to ensure that the Therefore, high-performance analog relays are used to switch
coherent sampling condition is in fact completely removed. between the filters and the testing signals. High-linearity
The results of varying this value can be seen in Fig. 11, where op amps are selected to serve as the buffer/driver, whose
the harmonic power estimation error is constant across all δ, nonlinearity is negligible compared with the nonlinearity of
hence, the coherent sampling condition is in fact removed. the source and that of the ADC under test. For verification
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
MAGSTADT et al.: ACCURATE SPECTRAL TESTING WITH IMPURE SOURCE AND NONCOHERENT SAMPLING 9
VI. C ONCLUSION
A new accurate spectral testing of an ADC while using
an impure source and noncoherent sampling was proposed.
This method is able to separate the nonlinearities of the
Fig. 13. Two initial raw signals that were captured by the ADC. signal generator from the nonlinearities of the ADC by use
of two different filters along with several steps of efficient
computations on the output data. Not only can this algorithm
accurately estimate the ADC spectral characteristics, but it can
also characterize the signal generator spectral characteristics.
This algorithm was verified using different simulations. It was
also tested to ensure that the algorithm was robust across
different parameters such as impure source level, noise, and
noncoherency. The simulations showed that a signal source
that had a purity level of −50 dB of THD was able to
accurately test a 16-b ADC with a THD of −94 dB while being
sampled noncoherently. Finally, a PCB test board was designed
and tested to further verify the accuracy of the algorithm.
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[15] K. F. Chen, “Estimating parameters of a sine wave by separable Yuming Zhuang (S’13) received the B.Sc. degree
nonlinear least squares fitting,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 59, in microelectronics from Xi’an Jiaotong University,
no. 12, pp. 3214–3217, Dec. 2010. Xi’an, China, in 2012. He is currently pursuing
[16] G. Simon, R. Pintelon, L. Sujbert, and J. Schoukens, “An efficient the Ph.D. degree with the Department of Electrical
nonlinear least square multisine fitting algorithm,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University,
Meas., vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 750–755, Aug. 2002. Ames, IA, USA.
[17] Z. Yu, D. Chen, and R. Geiger, “A computationally efficient method for He was an Analog Design Coop with Skyworks
accurate spectral testing without requiring coherent sampling,” in Proc. Solutions Inc., Cedar Rapids, IA, USA, in 2015,
ITC, Oct. 2004, pp. 1398–1407. where he focused on CMOS power amplifier con-
[18] S. Sudani, D. Chen, and R. Geiger, “A 2-FFT method for on-chip troller and SOI antenna switch controller design.
spectral testing without requiring coherency,” in Proc. IEEE Instrum. Since 2016, he has been with Analog Devices Inc.,
Meas. Technol. Conf., May 2011, pp. 1–6. Raleigh, NC, USA, as an IC Design Coop, where he has been involved in
[19] M. Wu, D. Chen, and G. Chen, “New spectral leakage-removing method programmable RF to bit transceiver design. His current research interests
for spectral testing of approximate sinusoidal signals,” IEEE Trans. include mixed signal IC design and low-cost precision testing of data
Instrum. Meas., vol. 61, no. 5, pp. 1296–1306, May 2012. converters.
[20] F. Xu, “Algorithm to remove spectral leakage, close-in noise, and
its application to converter test,” in Proc. IEEE IMTC, Apr. 2006,
pp. 1038–1042.
[21] S. Sudani, M. Wu, and D. Chen, “A novel robust and accurate spectral
testing method for non-coherent sampling,” in Proc. ITC, Sep. 2011, Degang Chen (F’16) received the B.S. degree
pp. 1–10. in instrumentation and automation from Tsinghua
[22] S. K. Sudani and D. Chen, “FIRE: A fundamental identification University, Beijing, China, in 1984, and the Ph.D.
and replacement method for accurate spectral test without requiring degree in electrical and computer engineering from
coherency,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 62, no. 11, pp. 3015–3025, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa
Nov. 2013. Barbara, CA, USA, in 1992.
[23] Y. Zhuang and D. Chen, “Accurate spectral testing with non-coherent He was the John R. Pierce Instructor of Elec-
sampling for large distortion to noise ratios,” in Proc. IEEE 34th VLSI trical Engineering with the California Institute of
Test Symp. (VTS), Apr. 2016, pp. 1–6. Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, in 1992. Since
then, he has been with Iowa State University, Ames,
IA, USA, where he is currently a Professor and
the Jerry Junkins Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was a
Faculty Fellow with Boeing, Chicago, IL, USA, in 1999, Maxim Integrated,
San Jose, CA, USA, in 2001, and Texas Instruments (TI), Dallas,
TX, USA, in 2011, 2012, and 2014. Within the last year, he has
Benjamin Magstadt received the B.S. and delivered technical seminars with Carnegie Mellon University, Pitts-
M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Iowa burgh, PA, USA, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, South
State University, Ames, IA, USA, in 2013 and 2014, Methodist University, Dallas, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
respectively. MN, USA, the University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Broadcom, CA,
He was a Product Engineering Intern with the USA, Cypress Semiconductor, WA/MN, USA, GlobalFoundries, VT, USA,
Wireless Group, Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas, TX, IBM Watson, NY, USA, Infineon, Germany, Intel, CA/OR, USA, NXP, TX,
USA, in 2011. In 2012, he was an RF Design USA, TI Dallas/India/Santa Clara, and Xilinx, CA, USA. He has authored
Engineering Intern with Boeing, Chicago, IL, USA. over 230 refereed journal and conference publications. His current research
In 2013, he was a Design Engineering Intern with interests include analog and mixed-signal integrated circuit design and testing,
the Low Power Wireless Group, Texas Instruments, integrated circuit sensor design, and high-accuracy test without requiring high-
where he held a full-time position in 2014. His accuracy instrumentation.
current research interests include analog and mixed signal design and low-cost Dr. Chen received 13 best paper awards and other honors, including the
high-accuracy testing of data converters. IEEE Ned Kornfield Best Paper Award in 2013 and 2014.