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:
Feb. 26, 1991
Filed:
Nov. 27, 1989
Howard E Hilton, Snohomish, WA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Errors in a sampled data process are discerned statistically throughout the process, permitting their efficient removal. An exemplary application is a subranging analog-to-digital converter (ADC), in which errors associated with component digital-to-analog (DAC) current sources are discerned and corrected automatically during the circuit's normal operation. This is achieved by continually introducing a random signal into the process, statistically examining the DAC output signal to discern error terms, and correlating the occurrences of these errors with the values of the random signal applied to the DACs so as to identify the current sources to which the error terms are due. The resulting ADC output signal is compensated to remove the random signal and is further compensated to remove the DAC error terms discerned by this statistical analysis. The effect of any errors that may remain due to imperfect quantification of the DAC error terms is minimized due to their randomization, permitting the removal of these error terms by averaging techniques.