Frequency Domain Analysis for Dynamic Nonlinearity Measurement in A/D Converters

The paper discusses the problem of measuring the dynamic systematic error, or the dynamic input-output characteristic, of an analog-to-digital converter stimulated by a sinusoidal input. First of all it is shown that the statistical methods, although widely used, yield misleading results in dynamic conditions, i.e. when the converter characteristic presents hysteresis. Secondly, the paper presents a modified version of a frequency-domain method (Chebyshev test), previously developed by the authors for testing static devices. Both simulation and experimental results show that the Chebyshev test for dynamic nonlinearities is a very fast way to measure the input-output characteristic of an ADC affected by hysteresis error.