Signal Statistics Compression-Based Quantization Method in an ADC
Utilizes lower power than current ADC techniquesNo degradation of ENOB and conversion rate
Analog to digital converters
The proposed ADC method uses a signal compressor-decompressor engine around the ADC to focus only on the signal, resulting in little wasted space and significantly improved power efficiency. Likewise, the proposed method can recognize that there is wasted frequency spectrum when not occupied by the signal and quantize only the signal spectrum in a highly power efficient manner. The compression ADC uses an instantaneous comparison technique on each sample of the input signal to determine whether the instantaneous signal is to undergo compression or is too large in amplitude or too fast in frequency to compress. In the former case, the significant power can be saved using a skip-ahead quantization technique. In the latter case, the ADC will resort to traditional full scale and full spectrum quantization. Amplitude and frequency parameters can be adjusted and adaptively controlled to determine whether the instantaneous signal is compressible or not. In traditional analog to digital conversion, the signal is “blindly” converted without any consideration to what the signal type or statistics are. As a result, the conversion process wastes a great deal of power. If the signal type or statistics are used wisely, the ADC power can be pushed to its lower limit. This invention proposes analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) using a unique signal statistics compression quantization technique that utilizes significantly lower power than competing ADC techniques. All these benefits come at no degradation of the effective number of bits (ENOB) and conversion rate compared to the traditional ADCs. Furthermore, the proposed technique needs no pre-knowledge of the signal type. Simply plug in the input signal and the proposed ADC will automatically adapt to the power-optimized state of the input signal.
8587463
Lead Inventor Fred Tzeng Additional Technologies by these Inventors Tech ID/UC Case 25237/2011-079-0 Related Cases 2011-079-0
Department of Electrical Engineering
Henry Samueli School of Engineering
University of California, Irvine
USA
