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:
Mar. 09, 2010
Filed:
Jun. 13, 2008
Ali Tabatabaei, San Francisco, CA (US);
Ramin Farjadrad, Los Altos, CA (US);
Ali Tabatabaei, San Francisco, CA (US);
Ramin Farjadrad, Los Altos, CA (US);
Aquantia Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) configured to operate in high frequency and/or high resolution environments. The DAC has a segmented architecture comprising one or more least significant bit (LSB) thermometer sub-converters and one or more most significant bit (MSB) thermometer sub-converters. A binary converter can also be added. The LSB and MSB thermometer sub-converters include cell pairs with a main cell and a dummy cell. The main cell switches according to actual data, drawing power from a voltage source at each transition. To maintain a consistent voltage level at the output, the dummy cell creates a transition to draw power from the voltage source responsive to a lack of transition in the main cell. Each cell pair has a dedicated voltage source. Also, the MSB thermometer sub-converter can include a load matching circuit to match the parasitic capacitance of the LSB thermometer sub-converter at an output.