Quantisation methods are provided which employ dither techniques to reduce the noise penalty in certain circumstances whilst still removing noise modulation. One method relates to reducing the wordwidth of audio by one bit, while another method relates to burying one bit of data in a pair of signal samples.

A frequency synthesizer is provided. The frequency synthesizer includes a jitter-cleaning phase-locked loop, a fractional phase-locked loop, a mixer, and a radio-frequency phase-locked loop. The jitter-cleaning phase-locked loop receives a reference clock and a mixed signal, and suppresses a jitter of the reference clock to generate a first oscillating signal based on the reference clock and the mixed signal. The fractional phase-locked loop receives the reference clock and generates a second oscillating signal based on the reference clock. The mixer mixes the first oscillating signal and the second oscillating signal to generate the mixed signal. The radio-frequency phase-locked loop receives the first oscillating signal and generates an output signal based on the first oscillating signal.

A modulator circuit includes a plurality of signal processing branches, each branch having a modulator for performing a delta-sigma modulation of a respective data stream portion in order to generate a modulated signal. The modulator circuit receives an input data stream having a carrier frequency; splits the input data stream into a plurality of data stream portions. Delta-sigma modulation is performed in each branch on a respective data stream portion. The respective modulated signals from each branch are combined to form an output signal for outputting at the carrier frequency.

Described is an apparatus which comprises: a first integrator to receive an input signal and to generate a first output; a second integrator to receive the first output or a version of the first output and to generate a second output; and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to quantize the second output into a digital representation, the ADC including a detection circuit to detect an overload condition in the second output.

An electric control device includes a first delta sigma modulator having a clock input connection, a second delta sigma modulator having a clock input connection, and an evaluation unit. The evaluation unit includes a first clock output connection which is connected to the clock input connection of the first delta sigma modulator by a first electrical cable, and a second clock output connection which is connected to the clock input connection of the second delta sigma modulator by a second electrical cable. The evaluation unit is designed to generate a clock signal (CLK1) at the first clock output connection (7) in phase opposition to a clock signal (CLK2) at the second clock output connection (9).

An oscillator includes a quartz crystal resonator and a circuit device, and the circuit device includes an oscillation circuit and a PLL circuit. The PLL circuit includes a phase comparison circuit that performs a phase comparison between the reference clock signal and a feedback clock signal, a control voltage generation circuit that generates a control voltage based on a result of the phase comparison, and a voltage control oscillation circuit that generates a clock signal having a frequency corresponding to the control voltage, and a frequency division circuit that divides a frequency of the clock signal and outputs the feedback clock signal. An oscillation frequency of the quartz crystal resonator is higher than or equal to 200 MHz, and a phase comparison frequency of the phase comparison circuit is higher than or equal to 200 MHz.

A system and method for regulating transfer characteristics of an integral analog-to-digital converter are provided. The system comprises a cascade N-stage integrator structure having N integrators, the input end of the first integrator is connected to a voltage, the output end of each integrator is connected to the input end of the adjacent integrator, and the output end of the Nth integrator is connected to an output node (VRAMP). Wherein, the N is positive integer greater than or equal to 2. In the cascade multistage integrator structure, the voltage of the output node (VRAMP) is in direct proportion relation with the time to the power of N. By adopting a cascade multistage integrator according to the present disclosure, it is simple to regulate transfer characteristics of the ADC, and the cascade digital signal processing is convenient, which can reduce the ADC conversion time and improve the ADC conversion rate. Compared with the existing polyline mode, the present disclosure has better linearity; and it can be easily extended to cascade multistage integrators.

The disclosure provides a receiver with high dynamic range. The receiver includes a photodiode that generates a current signal. A coupling capacitor is coupled to the photodiode, and generates a modulation signal in response to the current signal received from the photodiode. A sigma delta analog to digital converter (ADC) is coupled to the coupling capacitor, and generates a digital data in response to the modulation signal. A digital mixer is coupled to the sigma delta ADC, and generates an in-phase component and a quadrature component corresponding to the digital data. A processor is coupled to the digital mixer, and processes the in-phase component and the quadrature component corresponding to the digital data.

Systems and methods are disclosed for a signal convertor comprising a resistor or current source coupled to a positive virtual ground node and a negative virtual ground node, wherein the resistor or current source is configured to switch from the positive virtual ground node (VGP) to the negative virtual ground node (VGN), wherein the switching of the resistor or current source results in a shaping of the low frequency noise from the resistor.

Described herein is an improved apparatus for increasing the performance of a modulator, which may function as an ADC. In one embodiment, the modulator comprises a voltage to current converter, a capacitor connected between two outputs of the voltage to current converter to receive a differential input current, and a switch that can switch between connecting each output of the voltage to current converter to ground while disconnecting the other output of the voltage to current converter. In this embodiment, the modulator has no common mode control loop, and no reference current. This results in decreased complexity, i.e., fewer components, as well as reduced noise.