A 14-bit 500-MS/s DAC with digital background calibration

Thelinearityofcurrent-steeringdigital-to-analogconverters(DACs)atlowsignalfrequenciesismainly limited by matching properties of current sources, so large-size current source arrays are widely used for better matching. This, however, results in large gradient errors and parasitic capacitance, which degrade the spurious free dynamic range(SFDR) for high-frequency signals. To overcome this problem, calibration is an effective method.In this paper, a digital background calibration technique for current-steering DACs is presented and verified by a 14-bit DAC in a 0.13 m standard CMOS process. The measured differential nonlinearity(DNL) and integral nonlinearity(INL) are 0.4 LSB and 1.2 LSB, respectively. At 500-MS/s, the SFDR is 70 dB and 50.3 dB for signals of 5.4 MHz and 224 MHz, respectively. The core area is 0.69 mm2and the power consumption is 165 mW from a mixed power supply with 1.2 V and 3.3 V.