Simple and Time-effective Procedure for ADC INL Estimation

This paper deals with a novel testing technique aimed at estimating the accuracy of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The main advantage of the proposed approach is the higher testing speed, particularly the ability to achieve an accurate estimate of the low-frequency component (LCF) of the integral nonlinearity (INL) pattern of an ADC in a time that may be even one order of magnitude shorter than that of other standard techniques such as the sine wave histogram test (SHT). The estimation accuracy associated with the testing procedure is determined theoretically and validated by means of simulations and experimental results.