Time interleaved analog-digital converter and a method for driving the same

Abstract

A time interleaved analog-to-digital converter includes a plurality of analog-to-digital subconverters which are monolithically integrated in an array on a semiconductor chip and are sequentially activated into sampling and conversion operation in the time interleaved fashion for converting a received analog signal into a digital form. If an analog-to-digital subconverter in the i-th row of the j-th column of the array is activated at one sampling time in the sequential activation, an analog-to-digital subconverter in the k-th row of the l-th column is subsequently activated, where i, k, j and l bear the relations expressed by: i-2.ltoreq.k.ltoreq.i+2 and j-2.ltoreq.l.ltoreq.j+2. The sequential activation of the analog-to-digital subconverter array assures that the analog-to-digital subconverters disposed in physical proximity to one another are successively activated, thus greatly improving the differential linearity of the analog-to-digital converter characteristics.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.