Two-stage weighted capacitor circuit for analog-to-digital and

Abstract

A two-stage weighted capacitor network for use as an analog-to-digital or digital-to-analog converter is described. A capacitor ladder is included having two similar groups of capacitors connected in parallel. In each group the parallel capacitors have values starting with value C and decreasing in binary fractional amounts C/2.sup.1, C/2.sup.2, C/2.sup.3, C/2.sup.4 etc. to C/2.sup.n-1. The two groups are interconnected through a coupling capacitor of value C/2.sup.n-1 and each of the capacitors in the two groups are selectively connected through switches to either a reference voltage or ground potential. A high gain amplifier connected as an inverting amplifier with a 2C capacitor feedback path is connected to the capacitor ladder. When the circuit is used in a digital-to-analog converter, the 2C capacitor is reset and then the digital input pattern, consisting of 2n bits, is manifested by connecting the capacitor ladder switches to the ground potential for '1' bits and leaving the other switches connected to the reference potential for '0' bits. When the circuit is used in an analog-to-digital converter the output of the amplifier is connected to a comparator which serves as a polarity detector and which feeds a set of control logic. The control logic then sets the switches, which were originally all connected to the analog voltage, in a binary search mode.