A 100-nW 9.1-ENOB 20-kS/s SAR ADC for Portable Pulse Oximeter

Abstract

This brief presents an energy-efficient 10-bit accuracy with 20-kS/s successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter for portable pulse oximeter. A data-dependent capacitor reset (DDCR) switching scheme for the capacitive digital-to-analog converter (CDAC) to reduce the average switching energy and the number of unit capacitors is proposed and implemented. Compared with the conventional capacitor switching scheme for CDACs, the proposed DDCR switching scheme reduces the average switching energy and the total number of unit capacitors by 97% and 75%, respectively. We achieved a signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio of 56.5 dB and a spurious-free dynamic range of 64.7 dBc at the Nyquist input frequency. The measured peak differential and integral nonlinearities are 0.44 and 0.58 least significant bit, respectively. The figure of merit is 9.1 fJ/conversion-step. The prototype, fabricated in the 0.11-mu m CMOS process, occupies 0.033 mm(2).