A quad signal generator circuit generates four 2.sup.N−1 bit control signals in response to a sampling clock and a 2.sup.N−1 bit thermometer coded signal. A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit has 2.sup.N−1 unit resistor elements, with each unit resistor element including four switching circuits controlled by corresponding bits of the four 2.sup.N−1 bit control signals. Outputs of the 2.sup.N−1 unit resistor elements are summed to generate an analog output signal. The quad signal generator circuit controls generation of the four 2.sup.N−1 bit control signals such that all logic states of bits of the four 2.sup.N−1 bit control signals remain constant for at least a duration of one cycle of the sampling clock. The analog output signal may be a feedback signal in a sigma-delta analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuit that includes a multi-bit quantization circuit operating to quantize a filtered loop signal to generate the 2.sup.N−1 bit thermometer coded signal.

According to an exemplary embodiment, a capacitively coupled continuous-time delta-sigma modulator includes an instrumentation amplifier amplifying an input voltage to an output voltage of a predetermined magnitude, a delta-sigma modulator outputting a bit signal quantized depending on a sampling frequency based on the output voltage and to convert the bit signal into a digital-to-analog conversion voltage, and a ripple reduction loop unit generating a demodulation voltage, in which a ripple is removed from the output voltage, depending on an RRL operating frequency to feed the demodulation voltage back to the instrumentation amplifier. The RRL operating frequency is equal to the sampling frequency.

An instrument configured to process signal data is disclosed. The instrument is operable to control and or change the sampling rate of the signal data from a first sample rate to a second sample rate different than the first sample rate.

A delta-sigma modulator includes a first combining circuit, a loop filter circuit, a quantizer circuit, a truncator circuit, a first digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit, and a compensation circuit. The first combining circuit generates a first analog signal by combining an analog feedback signal and an analog input signal. The loop filter circuit generates a loop-filtered signal according to the first analog signal. The quantizer circuit outputs a first digital signal that is indicative of a digital combination result of at least a truncation error compensation signal and the loop-filtered signal. The truncator circuit performs truncation upon the first digital signal to generate a second digital signal. The first DAC circuit generates the analog feedback signal according to the second digital signal. The compensation circuit generates the truncation error compensation signal according to a truncation error resulting from truncation performed upon the first digital signal.

A circuit includes a transconductance stage having first and second outputs. The circuit also includes a comparator having first and second inputs. The first input is coupled to the first output, and the second input is coupled to the second output. The comparator includes first through fifth transistors and a pair of cross-coupled transistors. The pair of cross-coupled transistors is coupled to the second current terminals of the first and second transistors. The second current terminal of the third transistor is coupled to the second current terminal of the first transistor, and the first current terminals of the first, second, and third transistors are coupled together. The second current terminals of the fourth and fifth transistors are coupled together and to the control input of the third transistor.

A continuous-time (CT) delta-sigma modulator (DSM) based analog to digital converter (ADC) in a radio receive chain supports a wide range of data rates in a power efficient way in a small die area. The ADC utilizes a 2.sup.nd order loop-filter with a single-amplifier loop-filter topology using a two stage Miller amplifier with a feed forward path and a push-pull output stage. High bandwidth operations utilize a negative-R compensation scheme at the amplifier input. Negative-R assistance is disabled for low data rate applications. With the negative-R assistance disabled, loop-filter resistor values are increased, instead of only the loop filter capacitor values to scale the noise transfer function (NTF), thereby limiting the capacitor area needed and enabling lower power operation. The NTF zero location is programmable allowing the NTF zero to be located near the intermediate frequency for different bandwidths to reduce the DSM quantization noise contribution for narrow-band (low data rate) applications.

A delta-sigma modulator includes a capacitively-coupled amplifier, a first integrator, a second integrator, a quantizer, a first switch, a second switch, and a control circuit. The first switch is connected between an input of the capacitively-coupled amplifier and a sampling capacitor of the capacitively-coupled amplifier to execute a chopping operation. The second switch is connected between an output of the capacitively-coupled amplifier and an input of the first integrator to execute a chopping operation. The control circuit executes modulation through the first switch at the input of the capacitively-coupled amplifier, executes demodulation through the second switch at the output of the capacitively-coupled amplifier, and imports an output signal of the capacitively-coupled amplifier into the first integrator after the demodulation.

An instrument configured to process signal data is disclosed. The instrument is operable to control and or change the sampling rate of the signal data from a first sample rate to a second sample rate different than the first sample rate.

An ultrasound device is describe in which analog ultrasonic transducer output signal are directly converted to digital signals. The ultrasound device includes microfabricated ultrasonic transducers directly coupled to a sigma delta analog-to-digital converter in some instances. The direct digital conversion may allow for omission of undesirable analog processing stages in the ultrasound circuitry chain. In some situations, the ADC may be integrated on the same substrate as the ultrasound transducer.

According to an exemplary embodiment, a capacitively coupled continuous-time delta-sigma modulator includes an instrumentation amplifier amplifying an input voltage to an output voltage of a predetermined magnitude, a delta-sigma modulator outputting a bit signal quantized depending on a sampling frequency based on the output voltage and to convert the bit signal into a digital-to-analog conversion voltage, and a ripple reduction loop unit generating a demodulation voltage, in which a ripple is removed from the output voltage, depending on an RRL operating frequency to feed the demodulation voltage back to the instrumentation amplifier. The RRL operating frequency is equal to the sampling frequency.