This paper reports the transistor-level design of a 130-nm CMOS continuous-time cascade ΣΔ modulator. The modulator topology, directly synthesized in the continuous-time domain, consists of a third-order stage followed by a
second-order stage, both realized using Gm-C integrators and a 4-bit internal quantizer. Dynamic element matching is included to compensate for the non-linearity of the feedback
digital-to-analog converters. The estimated power consumption is 70 mW from a 1.2-V supply voltage when is clocked at 240MHz. CADENCE-SPECTRE simulations show 12-bit effective resolution within a 20-MHz signal bandwidth.
This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (with support from the European Regional Development Fund) under contract TEC2004-01752/MIC.
Peer reviewed