Final exercise.

Choose one of the papers listed in the website from the IEEE Journal of Solid-State
circuits: Write a 4-5 page comment on the chosen paper, dealing with:

What system is this converter intended for, what is the critical specification point.
If this is unclear from the paper: what do you think is the application area and
the relevant specification?

What novelty/improvement is claimed?

Analyze the details of the block and circuit diagrams. Try to understand the
function of every component.

What basic type of ADC/DAC is used, and which variation is applied.

Is that variation relevant for the specification, and why?

What part of the AD is relevant for the critical specification? Analyse the algo-
rithm.

Is there an alternative way of obtaining this improvement?

How does the technology affect the performance? Are specific issues indicated
(e.g. what effect has a higher threshold, how important is matching etc)

What happens if the power supply voltage changes to 80%.

Examine the measurement and simulation results: do these results give sufficient
information to judge the effectiveness of the proposed improvement? Is impor-
tant information missing from the measurements. Can you explain the frequency
components.

Determine the F.o.M.

And anything else that you consider important in this paper. Not all points can
be equally simple accessed from every paper, still try to find a suitable answer.

The final assessment takes place by an oral exam in which you will discuss a paper from
the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
Every student chooses his own paper, no team work. Do not copy text from the paper.
Make an appointment for a 45 minutes exam.

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