Noise shaped drive and population balanced network

A method of mitigating distortion in a signal comprising:

• determining a bit-cell population available to be activated based on a signal strength of a signal;
• determining a total number of bit-cells to activate, the total number of bit-cells being less than or equal to the bit-cell population;
• responsive to determining the total number of bit-cells to activate, allocating a first portion of the total number of bit-cells, the first portion to be activated by a variable-width dynamic element matching network (“DEM”);
• responsive to determining the first portion, allocating a second portion of the total number of bit-cells, the second portion to be activated by one or more fixed-width DEMs;
• responsive to determining the first portion, randomly selecting a first subset of bit-cells to be activated by the variable-width DEM;
• responsive to allocating the second portion, randomly selecting a second subset of bit-cells to be activated by the one or more fixed-width DEMs, the second subset not including any bit-cells of the first subset;
• and
• activating the first subset and second subset of bit-cells.

A system for processing a signal comprising:

• a plurality of bit-cells configured to be activated and deactivated;
• a calculation circuit configured to determine a first quantity of the plurality of bit-cells to activate during a first clock cycle, the calculation circuit further configured to determine a second quantity of the plurality of bit-cells to activate during a second clock cycle;
• a variable dynamic element matching network (“DEM”) configured to activate a first subset of bit-cells during the first clock cycle and a second subset of bit-cells during the second clock cycle;
• and
• at least one fixed DEM configured to activate a third subset of bit-cells during the first clock cycle and a fourth subset of bit-cells during the second clock cycle, the first subset, second subset, third subset, and fourth subset each containing only bit-cells that are not present in any other subset.