Study of operational amplifiers' characteristics for driving the inputs of high performance successive approximation register analog-to-digital converters

Abstract

This study deals with the requirement for driving the inputs of SAR ADCs used in data acquisition systems. The goal of the study is to develop an analysis technique for selecting amplifiers to drive the inputs of single supply, low power SAR ADCs. One of the conditions is that the amplifier selected must be capable of operating on the same power supply as the SAR ADC. The background and work directed towards achieving the above mentioned goal is outlined in the six chapters of this paper. The first chapter gives an overview of data acquisition systems and ADCs in data acquisition systems. The second chapter discusses the operation of CD AC capacitor array for unipolar, bipolar, differential, and single-ended SAR ADCs. The third chapter goes through the requirements of the SAR ADC and an analysis of operational amplifier's parameters and their required values. The fourth chapter shows how to simulate the selected operational amplifier's performance using Pspice. The fifth chapter describes empirical tests characterizing the amplifier's performance. The last chapter is the analysis of the data, conclusion, and recommendation.