The disclosure provides a data acquisition device. The data acquisition device includes a sensor that detects a physical quantity as analog data; a digital storage circuit that stores the physical quantity as digital data; a difference circuit that calculates a difference between a previous value of the physical quantity stored in the digital storage circuit and a current value of the physical quantity detected as analog data; and a comparison circuit that compares the difference with a predetermined threshold value; and a control unit. The control unit stores a value calculated by adding or subtracting a predetermined change amount to a previous value of the physical quantity stored in the digital storage circuit as the current value, when the difference exceeds or falls below the threshold value. Since the physical quantity is updated without executing A/D conversion, a decrease in the sampling frequency is suppressed.

A sub-ranging SAR ADC has a coarse flash ADC that generates bit values corresponding to MSBs of the digital output value, and a fine SAR ADC that generates bit values corresponding to LSBs of the digital output value. The fine ADC generates successive analog approximation signals for the analog input signal. Meta-stability (MTS) detection circuitry detects a coarse-ADC MTS condition in the coarse ADC if a magnitude of a difference between a current approximation signal and a previous approximation signal is greater than a specified threshold level. A controller controls operations of the sub-ranging ADC to correct for a detected coarse-ADC MTS condition. The MTS detection circuitry includes a positive MTS detector that detects a positive coarse-ADC MTS condition in the coarse ADC and a negative MTS detector that detects a negative coarse-ADC MTS condition in the coarse ADC.

A time-to-digital converter utilizes both coarse and fine quantizers and addresses mismatch by using redundant bits in the coarse time representation and the fine time representation. The redundant bits are compared and if the redundant bits are the same, no mismatch correction is required but if the redundant bits are different a correction is applied to correct the redundant portion of the coarse time information. The redundant portion includes the most significant bit generated by the fine quantizer and the least significant bit of the coarse quantizer. The correction adds to or subtracts from the redundant information.

An analog-to-digital converter may convert an analog signal into digital codes representative of the changing level of the analog signal. An analog high pass filter may receive and continuously differentiate the analog signal. A voltage controlled oscillator may receive the differentiated analog signal and continuously generates an output that is an integral of the differentiated analog signal in the phase domain. A time-to-digital converter may sample the output of the voltage controlled oscillator and convert each sample into a digital code representative of the current phase of the sampled output of the voltage controlled oscillator.

An analog-to-digital converter may convert an analog signal into digital codes representative of the changing level of the analog signal. An analog high pass filter may receive and continuously differentiate the analog signal. A voltage controlled oscillator may receive the differentiated analog signal and continuously generates an output that is an integral of the differentiated analog signal in the phase domain. A time-to-digital converter may sample the output of the voltage controlled oscillator and convert each sample into a digital code representative of the current phase of the sampled output of the voltage controlled oscillator.

A differential subrange analog-to-digital converter (ADC) converts differential analog image signals received from sample and hold circuits to a digital signal through an ADC comparator. The comparator of the differential subrange ADC is shared by a successive approximation register (SAR) ADC coupled to provide both M upper output bits (UOB) and a ramp ADC coupled to provide N lower output bits (LOB). Digital-to-analog converters (DACs) of the differential subrange SAR ADC comprises 2M buffered bit capacitor fingers connected to the comparator. Each buffered bit capacitor finger comprises a bit capacitor, a bit buffer, and a bit switch controlled by the UOB. Both DACs are initialized to preset values and finalized based on the values of the least significant bit of the UOB. The subsequent ramp ADC operation will be ensured to have its first ramp signal ramps in a monotonic direction and its second ramp signal ramp in an opposite direction.

The present embodiments provide an analog to digital converter, including a beam splitter, M photodetectors, M amplifier modules, and an encoder. Each output end of the beam splitter is corresponding to an input end of a photodetector, an output end of each photodetector is connected to an input end of an amplifier module, and an output end of each amplifier module is connected to an input end of the encoder. The beam splitter splits an inputted analog optical signal into M optical signals, outputs each optical signal to a corresponding photodetector to convert each optical signal into a current signal, inputs each current signal to a corresponding amplifier module to generate an output voltage, and outputs the output voltage to a corresponding input end of the encoder.

A control device according to an embodiment includes a driving unit that supplies, to a control target, a current or a voltage on which an Alternating-Current (AC) component is superimposed, an Analog-to-Digital (AD) converter, and an AD conversion controller. The AD conversion controller causes, in an AC cycle of the AC component, the AD converter to execute a first AD conversion in synchronization with a starting timing of the AC cycle, and then to execute second and subsequent AD conversions at predetermined time intervals in response to a trigger by an internal timer of the AD converter.

In a matrix image sensor, a method of reading a pixel of a column allows two modes of analogue-digital conversion of the voltage level provided by the column: a first mode in which are carried out a single analogue-digital conversion in a nominal conversion time window F.sub.CONV, of nominal duration d.sub.n and a counting which starts with a ramp of nominal duration d.sub.n and stops upon the toggling of the output S.sub.CMP of the comparator; and a second mode which provides for multiple conversions by comparison with a ramp of reduced duration d.sub.r, in the same nominal conversion time window. The selection of the mode of conversion to be applied is based on the observation of the state of the output S.sub.CMP of the comparator after a predetermined duration after the instant t.sub.i of ramp start: if the output has toggled, the useful level to be converted represents a low light level to which the second mode with multiple conversions will be applied; if the output has not toggled, the useful level to be converted represents a high light level and the first, conventional, mode with single conversion will be applied. The invention makes it possible to improve the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the sensor, for low light levels, by decreasing the amount of the Gaussian noise due to the circuits of the conversion chain.

A sum-of-products calculation apparatus is provided. The sum-of-products calculation apparatus includes an analog-to-digital (A-to-D) conversion circuit having an encoder circuit and a plurality of inverters. Threshold voltages of the inverters are set according to classification threshold values of an activation function. The inverters generate a plurality of bit signals in response to an analog sum-of-products signal. The encoder circuit encodes the bit signals to generate a digital signal.