The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 28, 1989
Filed:
May. 19, 1988
Christopher W Mangelsdorf, Reading, MA (US);
Analog Devices, Inc., Norwood, MA (US);
Abstract
In a parallel (or 'flash') type analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a decoding technique and apparatus. First, the output of every comparator is examined relative to its nearest neighbors. If, for comparator 'n', the outputs of 'neighboring' comparators 'n+1' and 'n-1' both are in a different state than the output of comparator 'n', the output state of comparator 'n' is reversed. That is, each group of three adjacent comparators (n-1, n and n+1) is examined and the output of the 'center' comparator is 'corrected' by substituting the majority state of the three comparators for the output of the 'center' comparator (i.e., comparator 'n'). Second, the zeroes-to-ones transition point is found in the thus-corrected outputs. Once the transition point is found, a conventional encoding produces a digital output word. Circuitry is provided for the efficient implementation of the method and for performing the method in an equivalent single step.