A Novel Glitch Reduction Circuitry for Binary-Weighted DAC

Abstract

This paper presents a high-speed, low-glitch, and low-power design for a 10-bit binary-weighted current-steering digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Instead of using large input buffers, the proposed design uses variable-delay buffers to compensate for the delay difference among different bits, and to reduce high glitch energy from 132pVs to 1.36pVs during major code transition. The spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) has been improved over 10dB compared to the conventional DAC without variable-delay buffers. This chip was implemented in a standard 0.18um CMOS technology, occupies 1.1mm(2) core area, and dissipates 19mW from a single 1.8V power supply.