A receiver includes: an automatic gain controller (AGC) configured to receive an analog signal; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) configured to receive an output from the AGC and to output a digitized signal, wherein a most significant bit of the digitized signal corresponds to a sliced data, and a least significant bit of the digitized signal corresponds to an error signal; and an adaptation unit configured to control the AGC, the ADC, or both the AGC and the ADC, based at least in part on the digitized signal to achieve a desired data digitization and data slicing.

A system and method for digitizing data from an imaging system includes sampling a signal from an optical detector with a first circuit having a first attenuation and with a second circuit having a second attenuation different than the first attenuation. The system and method further includes digitizing the sampled signal at a predetermined number of bits desired for an analog to digital conversion of the sampled signal by allocating a first portion of bits to digitizing a signal from the first circuit and allocating a second portion of bits to digitizing a signal from the second circuit. The system and method further includes encoding the first and second portion of bits into one monotonic digital word corresponding to a range of the sampled signal.

A semiconductor device includes an AD conversion unit that performs AD conversion on an input signal based on a reference voltage to be supplied, a reference voltage detection unit that detects the reference voltage supplied to the AD conversion unit, and a control unit that corrects a result of the AD conversion by the AD conversion unit in accordance with the reference voltage detected by the reference voltage detection unit. Thereby, AD conversion can be performed accurately even when a reference voltage varies.

In some embodiments, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) comprises a loop filter configured to produce an error signal based on a difference between an analog input signal and a feedback signal. The ADC also comprises a main comparator set comprising one or more main comparators, the main comparator set configured to digitize the error signal and further configured to drive a main digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The ADC further comprises an auxiliary comparator set comprising a plurality of auxiliary comparators, the auxiliary comparator set configured to digitize the error signal when the ADC is in a runaway state and further configured to drive an auxiliary DAC to bring the error signal into a predetermined range.

A passive radiometric system for thermally imaging objects in a scene. The system includes a digital square-law quantizer circuit including a plurality of comparators and a voltage divider network having a plurality of resistors. Each comparator receives a different reference signal generated by the voltage divider network and a common power signal from an antenna and outputs a high or low digital bit signal. The system also includes a delta-sigma circuit having a weighting table responsive to the digital bit signals from the comparators that converts the digital bit signals to a normalized bit word. The delta-sigma circuit also includes an accumulator that receives the digital bit words from the weighting table and provides an average of the digital bit words. The system also includes a digital-to-analog converter that converts the averaged bit words to an analog signal that is provided as a feedback signal to the quantizer circuit.

Disclosed herein is an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for converting an input analog voltage to an output digital code, the ADC comprising a first node of the input analog voltage: nodes of a plurality of reference voltages; a plurality of comparators, inputs of each comparator being coupled to the first node and a node of a corresponding reference voltage of the plurality of reference voltages; a logic circuit block for receiving outputs of the plurality of comparators and generating the output digital code; and a voltage stabilizer, terminals of the voltage stabilizer being coupled with the first node and a node of a first reference voltage among the plurality of reference voltages.

A utility meter for measuring a utility parameter is disclosed, the utility meter including a measuring system, an analog-to-digital converter having a conversion range, and a control unit, the measurement system being able to transmit a measurement signal representative of the utility parameter to the analog-to-digital converter, and the analog-to-digital converter being able to convert the measurement signal into a digital bit number and transmit the digital bit number to the control unit. The control unit controls the transmission of an ADC control signal based on a set of digital bit numbers to the analog-to-digital converter so as to control the conversion range. Furthermore, a method of operating a utility meter is disclosed.

A semiconductor device includes an AD conversion unit that performs AD conversion on an input signal based on a reference voltage to be supplied, a reference voltage detection unit that detects the reference voltage supplied to the AD conversion unit, and a control unit that corrects a result of the AD conversion by the AD conversion unit in accordance with the reference voltage detected by the reference voltage detection unit. Thereby, AD conversion can be performed accurately even when a reference voltage varies.

A method for pre-loading a SAR ADC with an initial value for a selected range of high-order bits. If the ADC resolves at either an upper or a lower limit set by the pre-loaded value, the ADC may discard the pre-loaded value and perform a full search. Alternatively, the ADC may perform one or more bonus steps before giving up and performing a full search.

To provide a measuring device wherein a measurement range corresponding to a wave shape to be measured can be set with a simple configuration. A measuring device (100) has: a measuring unit that measures changes of indexes with time, said indexes relating to an object event; a conversion unit that converts a measurement value measured by means of the measuring unit into a predetermined format within a previously set measurement range; and a control unit that controls the measurement range. The control unit changes the measurement range in the cases where a conversion value obtained by converting the measurement value by means of the conversion unit satisfies predetermined conditions in a predetermined period.