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:
Jan. 22, 2002
Filed:
Aug. 21, 2000
Ronald Chang, Fremont, CA (US);
Jose A. Salcedo, Livermore, CA (US);
Raphael Horton, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Exar Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
An analog-to-digital converter which has a low resolution and high resolution mode. In response to the low resolution mode signal, a switching circuit selects only certain of the digital bit outputs. In one embodiment, the analog-to-digital converter is a pipelined circuit with a number of stages. In response to the low resolution mode, a number of the stages are bypassed, so that only the needed stages for the smaller number of bits are used. The stages that are bypassed are preferably powered down, but not completely. By maintaining a small amount of bias current to the bypassed stages, they can quickly respond when a switch is made back to full resolution mode.