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:
Dec. 03, 1996
Filed:
Jul. 03, 1995
Po-Chin Hsu, Taipei, TW;
Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, TW;
Abstract
An analog to digital converter for the conversion of an analog input voltage to a digital output voltage signal of n bits has a plurality of voltage sources (Voltage Reference Generator) that divide the total range of voltage of the conversion input into increments of voltage equal to the smallest increment of resolution. The n bits of digital output are divided into an upper segment or Most Significant Bits (MSB) and a lower segment or Least Significant Bits (LSB). The Most Significant bits are encoded from a set of digital signals from a plurality of comparators (Coarse Subrange Comparators) that compare the voltage input with a subset of Voltage Reference Generator representing the coarse range. The Coarse Subrange Comparator outputs are used to determine the placement of a plurality of Embedded Subrange Comparators that are used to detect any error in the codes of the Coarse Subrange Comparators. The output of the Coarse and Embedded Subrange Comparators are now used to determine the connection of a plurality of Fine Subrange Comparators to the Voltage Reference Generator in the section of the Coarse Subrange to accurately determine the smallest increment of resolution for the Analog to Digital Converter. The codes from the Coarse, Embedded, and Fine Subrange Comparators become the input to an encoder to determine the output digital voltage that represent the input voltage.