The present application claims priority to Indian Provisional Patent Application No. 4091/CHE/2015, filed Aug. 6, 2015, titled “Continuous Tracking Of Mismatch Correction In Both Analog And Digital Domains In An Interleaved ADC,” which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
An analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D converter, or A to D) is a device that converts a continuous physical quantity (e.g., voltage) into a digital value that represents the quantity's amplitude. The analog-to-digital conversion involves quantization of the input, such that a small amount of error is introduced. Moreover, instead of doing a single conversion, an ADC often performs the conversions (“samples” the input) periodically. The result is a sequence of digital values that have been converted from a continuous-time and continuous-amplitude analog signal to a discrete-time and discrete-amplitude digital signal.
A time-interleaved ADC uses N parallel ADCs where each ADC samples data every Nth cycle of the effective sample clock, where N is a positive integer. The result is that the sample rate is increased N times compared to the sample rate attainable by each individual ADC.
However, mismatches in one or more of the gain, timing and offset between the component ADCs can limit performance of a time-interleaved ADC. Further, these parameter mismatches can be frequency independent and create interleaving images. Thus, systems and methods for correcting for these interleaving images would be beneficial in the art.
For a detailed description of various examples, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings in which:
Certain terms are used throughout the following description and claims to refer to particular system components. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, different companies may refer to a component by different names. This document does not intend to distinguish between components that differ in name but not function. In the following discussion and in the claims, the terms “including” and “comprising” are used in an open-ended fashion, and thus should be interpreted to mean “including, but not limited to . . . .” Also, the term “couple” or “couples” is intended to mean either an indirect or direct wired or wireless connection. Thus, if a first device couples to a second device, that connection may be through a direct connection or through an indirect connection via other devices and connections. The term “based on” means based at least in part on.
Systems and method are described for determining interleaving mismatches of an interleaved analog-to-digital converter (IADC) signal. The mismatches of in IADC signal in the frequency domain may be estimated to provide correction filters that can be employed to remove the mismatches from the IADC signal, while a frequency-independent delay mismatch may be independently tracked and applied to adjust the clocks applied to the component ADCs.
In general, for an interleaved analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with N number of ADCs (where N is an integer greater than one), there are N-1 spurs. As used herein, the term “spur” corresponds to a spurious tone that interferes with the output of the interleaved ADC. Throughout this disclosure, these spurs are referred to as “images” of tones, since the spurs are correlated to the tones and related to the frequency location of the input in the manner described herein. For purposes of simplification of explanation, throughout this disclosure, an example is employed where there are 4 ADCs. In this situation, for an input tone at a frequency of f0 and an amplitude of A0, an output of the interleaved ADC can have three spurs occur due to the mismatches. In such a situation, the images of the tone can occur at f0+fs/4 (fs is the sampling frequency of the interleaved ADC), f0+2fs/4 and f0+3fs/4, with respective complex amplitudes of G1(f0)A0, G2(f0)A0 and G3(f0)A0. It is noted that the frequencies f0+fs/4, f0+2fs/4, f0+3fs/4, etc. can be aliased to frequencies between fs/2 and fs/2 due to the ADC sampling. Based on this information, the systems and methods described herein can estimate the three components G1(f), G2(f) and G3(f) for frequencies across a band. The three components can be converted into filter coefficients that can be employed in correction filters to reduce/remove the effects due to the mismatches in the output of the interleaved ADC. Accordingly, the systems and methods described herein can reduce/eliminate mismatches from an interleaved ADC signal.
The interleaved ADC 4 can include an array of N number of ADCs 6 that can sample an analog input signal 5. The interleaved ADC 4 can be a time-interleaved ADC. A sample clock causes each of the N number of ADCs 6 to sample the analog signal. Thus, at each Nth sample, a given ADC 6 samples the analog signal. Output from each of the N number of ADCs 6 is interleaved (e.g., multiplexed) and output as an interleaved ADC (“IADC”) signal.
More particularly, in the system 2, a clock signal 7 can be provided to a phase locked loop (PLL) 9 that can provide a phase-locked clock signal to N number of frequency dividers 11. The frequency dividers 11 can each control the sampling of a corresponding ADC 6. In some examples, the PLL 9 can output a clock signal and each frequency dividers 11 can divide the output of the PLL 9 by N. For instance, in situations where the output of the PLL 9 has a frequency of 1 GHz, and there are four (4) ADCs 6, each of the frequency dividers 11 could have an output with a frequency of 250 MHz at different phases. The output from each of the ADCs 6 can be interleaved (e.g., multiplexed) by an interleaver 13 and output as an IADC signal. It is to be understood that in some examples, the clock signal 7 can be generated internally at the interleaved ADC 4 or external to the interleaved ADC 4 and/or the system 2.
Due to inherent fabrication and design tolerances, each individual ADC 6 may have a unique gain, sampling time offset and bandwidth and other unique characteristics. Thus, a given ADC 6 may have at least gain, sampling time instance and bandwidth mismatches or some combination thereof relative to a reference ADC 6. The IADC signal includes N-1 number of spurs that are a result of the mismatches between the individual ADCs 6. The profile of these N-1 spurs as a function of the input frequency can be referred to as a mismatch profile. Accordingly, the IADC output by the interleaved ADC 52 is referred to as an uncorrected IADC signal 15. The system 2 can correct these mismatches.
Due to inherent design tolerances of the component ADCs 6, each individual ADC 6 may have one or more parameter mismatches. By way of example and not limited to the following, each ADC 6 may have a unique gain, sampling time offset and bandwidth that causes a mismatch between each individual ADC 6 and a reference ADC, e.g., a first one of ADCs 6. Let Gk(f) represent a frequency dependent mismatch profile of the interleaved ADC 4. It is noted that although examples are employed that describe individual (constant) tones, the system 2 can also process wideband signals wherein tones change amplitude, phase and frequency over time. For example, consider an input tone at a frequency f0 and an amplitude of A0, with a sampling frequency of fs. As is illustrated in
In the foregoing the effect of parameter mismatches among component ADCs in an interleaved ADC have been described. However these parameter mismatches need not be associated physically with different component ADCs. For example, even if there is a single ADC converting all the samples, there might be parameter mismatches which vary periodically with time, due to some stray coupling or other effects. For the purpose of illustration, suppose every fourth sample of such an ADC may have the same parameters associated with it, which parameters differ from the three preceding samples. In this case also, the output of the ADC can be treated as if it is Interleaved-by-4 and the principles of the disclosure set forth above also apply. Conceptually, such a system is an equivalent Interleaved ADC and the representation of an interleaved ADC in
Returning to
The frequency domain converter 17 may also apply an initial validity check on the selected blocks of the uncorrected IADC signal and remove blocks that violate certain conditions. For instance, the frequency domain converter 17 may examine the selected blocks to determine if more than a specified number of samples are greater than a saturation threshold in absolute value. If the determination for a block is true, then that block can be rejected. This determination can be employed as a saturation-based FFT block rejection. Accordingly, if a selected sample in a block is higher than a value close to saturation, then that block can be deemed to be nearly saturated and dropped, thereby avoiding problems that arise due to saturation of a signal. Additionally, the frequency domain converter 17 may examine each of the selected blocks to determine if the overall block power is less than a power threshold for a given block. Each of the selected blocks with an overall power below the power threshold can be rejected to avoid cases where there is no real input and only ADC noise is detected as output. Such a rejection of the selected blocks can help facilitate the operation of the tracking filters and help improve the mitigation of the mismatch.
The output of frequency domain converter 17 may be provided to a signal image correlator and power estimator 19. The signal image correlator and power estimator 19 may determine a correlation between tones for each of the FFT bins. Operation of a signal image correlator and power estimator that may be used in at least some embodiments of system 2 is described in the commonly-owned U. S. patent application Ser. No. 14/656,205, filed Mar. 12, 2015, titled “Mismatch Profile”, published Sep. 17, 2015 as U.S. Patent Application Publication 2015/0263753, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
The output of signal image correlator and power estimator 19 may be provided to an aggregator and validity checker 102. The aggregator and validity checker 102 may be configured to apply a first validity check that compares the determined power of each tone to a threshold (e.g., of about −40 dBFS). Tones with a power of less than the threshold fail the first validity check and can be rejected from aggregation. Additionally, the aggregator and validity checker 102 may apply a second validity check to determine if a signal-to-image power ratio, is greater than a threshold (e.g., second threshold) to limit estimation errors due to interferer generated bias. Operation of a aggregator and validity checker that may be used in at least some embodiments of system 2 is described in the aforesaid U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/656,205 which has been incorporated by reference. The output of aggregator and validity checker 102 may be provided to a frequency domain estimator 104. Frequency domain estimator 104 may generate instantaneous frequency dependent mismatch profile estimates Gk(b) which may be provided to the two tracking filters described further below. Operation of a frequency domain estimator 104 that may be used in at least some embodiments of system 2 is described in the aforesaid U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/656,205 which has been incorporated by reference.
The instantaneous frequency domain mismatch profile estimates Gk(b) from frequency domain estimator 104 may be coupled to a pair of tracking filters via control logic 106. Switch fabric 110 steers the flow of the frequency domain estimates from frequency domain estimator 104 to the two tracking filters, a first tracking filter, which may be referred to as an overall mismatch tracking filter (OMTF) 108 a second tracking filter, which may be referred to as a delay mismatch tracking filter (DMTF) 112. Switch fabric 110 may comprise a plurality of switches controlled via control logic 106 based on a set of gating signals, as described further below in conjunction with
The OMTF 108 tracks frequency domain mismatch profiles over time, as adjusted for timing delay mismatches corrected in an analog loop, as described further below. In other words, an OMTF 108 tracks a frequency domain mismatch profile formed from parameter mismatches between the component ADCs 6, as described above. The OMTF 108 output may be referred to as a filtered frequency domain mismatch profile. In at least some embodiments, OMTF 108 may be implemented as a Kalman filter. The operation of an OMTF that may be used in at least some embodiments of an OMTF 108 is described in the aforesaid U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/656,205 which has been incorporated by reference. An output of the OMTF 108 may determine a correction of frequency dependent mismatch errors in the output of the IADC 4. For example, the output of OMTF 108 may be provided to a time domain converter 116 which outputs a set of filter coefficients 118 to mismatch corrector 105. Mismatch corrector 105 outputs a corrected IADC signal 130. The operation of a time domain convertor 116 and mismatch corrector 105 which may be used in at least some embodiments is described in the commonly-owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/656,122, filed Mar. 12, 2015, titled “Mismatch Corrector”, published Sep. 17, 2015 as U.S. Patent Application Publication 2015/0263749, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. The operation of OMTF 108 in conjunction with DMTF 112 will also be described in conjunction with
A DMTF 112 tracks delays alone. As described further below, the output of DMTF 112 may comprise on an iterative basis, a frequency-independent timing delay mismatch estimate which may be used to determine a correction of the timing delay mismatch, and an estimate of a timing delay mismatch correction error based on the corrected timing delay mismatch. Thus, the output of the DMTF 112 may further determine a correction of the timing delay mismatch correction error in the output of the IADC 4. Stated differently, the DMTF 112 tracks, for each of N-1 component ADCs 6, a timing delay mismatch relative to a reference one of the component ADCs 6. The timing delay mismatch estimate may be provided to a DAC scale estimator 122 and DAC scale logic 124 which may comprise logic configured to adjust a phase of clock signals to the component ADCs 6. Thus, as described further below, DAC scale estimator 122 may input a DAC timing code increment 123. In at least some embodiments, DAC timing code increment 123 may be stored by DAC scale estimator 122 from a previous iteration of a timing delay mismatch error estimate, as described further below in conjunction with
System 2 also includes reset logic 120 and analog correction compensation logic 126. Reset logic 120 operates to reset DMTF 112. Analog correction compensation logic 126 operates in conjunction with a summing block (Σ) 128 to adjust the frequency-dependent mismatch profile estimates from OMTF 108 based on the frequency independent delay correction in analog. Although Σ 128 is illustrated as integrated in OMTF 128, in at least some embodiments, Σ 128 may be implemented as a separate logic block, and a person of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the disclosure would appreciate that architecturally such implementations are equivalent. The operation of reset logic 120 and analog correction mismatch logic 126 are further described in conjunction with
Turning now to
However, typically, the DAC scale is not accurately known and, further, the DAC scale may also change across DAC codes. Consequently, the OMTF output may not fully represent the residual frequency dependent mismatch and correcting that using the mismatch corrector 105 (
Turning to block 304, control signals are initialized. In particular a set of gating signals, Sk(b) and S′k(b) which may be used to set the state of switches, or gates, comprising switch fabric 110 (
In block 306, the instantaneous frequency dependent mismatch profile estimates Gk(b) and corresponding uncertainties RGk(b) that are coupled to the inputs of an OMTF 108 and an DMTF 112 in response to the gating signals Sk(b), S′k(b) are processed in the OMTF and the DMTF to generate the respective outputs, filtered frequency domain mismatch profile estimates GKFk(b), and mismatch estimate uncertainties RKFGk(b) of the OMTF and timing delay mismatch estimate τi and delay mismatch estimate uncertainty στ
The processing of frequency dependent mismatch profile estimates by a DMTF 112 in accordance with at least some embodiments will now be described in the context of an exemplary embodiment of an IADC 4 having four component ADCs 6. Thus, the index, k of frequency domain mismatches Gk(b) take the values 1, 2, 3. A DMTF 112 may, in at least some embodiments comprise a Kalman filter. In particular, DMTF 112 may comprise a Kalman filter that maintains three internal states which may be denoted, in the equations to follow, τG1R, τG1I, τG2. These are then processed to get the τi and στi2. In the example, IADC comprising four component ADCs, i takes the values 1, 2, 3.
The initial conditions of the exemplary Kalman filter are defined in Equations (1) and (2):
τG
The initial uncertainties for the delay Kalman filter states may be set to a large value, denoted inf in equation (2), such that the initial Kalman gains, K1, K2, K3, defined in equation (9) below are essentially equal to 1. Thus,
RG
The Kalman filter may then be updated in accordance with Equations (3)-(12) as will now be described.
The time update may be given by:
R
G
KF
=R
G
KF
+Q (3)
R
G
KF
=R
G
KF
+Q (4)
R
G
KF
=R
G
KF
+Q (5)
where Q is the process noise variance for the delay Kalman filter states. The measurement update may be given by the following equations, for Gk(b) valid for k=1,2, 3, and for
Compute the instantaneous estimates and uncertainties, equations (6)-(8), and the Kalman filter estimates in Equations (9)-(12):
where REXT is an additional uncertainty term to account for a frequency dependent delay component. Re[x] corresponds to the real part of x, and Im[x] corresponds to the imaginary part of x. The additional uncertainty term, REXT may be dependent on whether the current phase is all estimation phase or delay only estimation phase. In the all estimation phase which pertains to block 306, REXT may be chosen to be equal a pre-selected value REXT,ALL_EST. For example, in at least some embodiments, REXT,ALL_EST may have the value 10−6, which corresponds to uncertainty of −60dB. The value of REXT in the delay only estimation phase will be described in conjunction with block 322 below. The Kalman gains may be computed by:
and the states updated by:
τG
τG
τG
and the respective uncertainties updated by:
R
G
KF=(1−K1)RG
The output timing delay mismatch estimates and their respective uncertainties may be determined as in Equations (13)-(19). First defining:
τG1=τG1R+jτG1I, (13)
τG2=0+jτG2, (14)
τG3=−τG1R+jτG1I, and (15)
τG0=−(τG1+τG2+τG3). (16)
The delays and their respective uncertainties may be determined in terms of the aforesaid defined quantities as:
As described above, fRES is the FFT-bin resolution. The foregoing equations are applicable to the first Nyquist band, that is, for input frequencies to the IADC within the range of 0 to Fs/2, where Fs is the ADC sampling frequency. To account for input signals in higher Nyquist bands, the bin index, b, may be redefined in accordance with the following equation 20:
where NyqBand indexes the Nyquist band, thus, NyqBand=1, for the first Nyquist band, NyqBand=2 for the second Nyquist band etc., and NFFT is the number of bins in the FFT, as previously described
Having determined the timing delay mismatch estimates and their respective uncertainties, in block 308 it is determined if, for any value of i=1, 2, 3, a τi exceeds a preselected delay threshold th1 and the corresponding uncertainty στ
If, however, one or more of the τi and its corresponding uncertainty στ
With the foregoing definitions, method 300 proceeds to block 312, where the second phase, referred to as the delay only estimation phase, is entered. In block 312, the delay mismatches of the component ADCs 6 corresponding to the indices icorr are corrected in analog. The delays may be corrected by adding a value ci to a current value of a code input to the respective ones of DACs 142, which code sets the output signal of the DACs, thereby determining a phase shift of the corresponding phase shifter 144, as described above. The ci may be determined by equations (21) and (22):
ci=τana,i/τRES,i, for all i in icorr and (21)
ci=0, for all i in ir. (22)
Here TRES,i is the resolution of the ith DAC 104, that is, the phase shift, in units of time, produced by an increment of the least significant bit in the DAC code. DAC resolution will be described further below. In at least some embodiments, the operations in block 312 may be performed by a DAC scale estimator 122 and DAC scale logic 124 (
In block 314, the gating signals Sk(b), S′k(b) are set based on the set of FFT bins having an uncertainty in the filtered frequency domain mismatch profile estimate output from the OMTF 108 that satisfies (e.g., that are less than) a preselected uncertainty threshold criterion, thunc. Thus, let B denote the set of bins for which RG
S
k(B)=1, Sk(Bc)=0, and (23)
S′
k(B)=0, S′k(Bc)=1. (24)
In the foregoing, the setting of the gating signals is based on an exemplary embodiment in which the value 0 signals on gate to close and the value 1 signals a gate to open. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the are having the benefit of the disclosure, complementary values may be used to signal the gates to open or close, and, correspondingly, the complements of equations (23) and (24) would be used in block 314, and similarly in the defining the set Bn above.
The outputs of the OMTF may be adjusted for the delay mismatches that are to be corrected in the analog loop. Thus, in block 316, components to be corrected in the analog loop are removed from the OMTF estimate. Stated otherwise, a frequency domain mismatch profile based on the correction of the timing delay mismatch is removed from the filtered frequency domain mismatch profile estimate. The component may be removed by correcting the estimate GkKF(Bn) using equations (25) and (26):
also shown schematically in the input-output diagram 402 (
In block 318, the DMTF is reset, wherein the DMTF states and uncertainties are forced to their initial values, as, for example, set forth in equations (1) and (2) above. Reset logic 120 (
In block 320, a subtraction term i.e., the signal 113 input to Δ 111 (
G
k,SUB
τ,KF(B)≡GkKF(B). (27)
The differencing block may also receive, via switch fabric 110 the signal 115 comprising the instantaneous frequency domain estimates Gk(B) from frequency domain estimator 104, and return the difference signal 117 to switch fabric 110. The switch fabric, in response to the gating signals as set in block 314 may then couple the difference signal 117 to the input of the DMTF 112. This is also shown schematically in input-output diagram 404 (
In block 322, the inputs, based on the gating signals as set in block 314, to the OMTF 108 and the DMTF 112 are processed as previously described. In particular, with respect to the DMTF 112, the inputs are processed in accordance with equations 1-20 except, as block 322 is included in the delay only estimation phase, the value of REXT=0. The outputs of DMTF 112 comprise timing delay mismatch correction error estimates, denoted Δτi, for each of the values of i in icorr and a corresponding timing delay mismatch correction error estimate uncertainty, denoted σΔσ
Turning to block 324, in block 324, the values of Δσi are tested against a preselected threshold, th3, and the corresponding delay correction error estimate uncertainties, σΔτ
In block 328, the values of Δτi are again tested against the threshold, th3, and the corresponding delay correction error estimate uncertainties, σΔτ
Turning to block 330, in block 330, as previously stated, the DAC resolution estimates are updated. The DAC resolution estimates may be updated in accordance with equation 28:
τRES,i=ci/(τana,i−Δτi), (28)
for all i in the set i′corr where the set i′corr is the subset of icorr for which the aforesaid conditions in block 328 are satisfied. And, for all i in i′corr, the delays to be corrected in the analog loop are set, in block 332, Defining i′r to be the set of indices, i, complementary to icorr, (i.e., the subset of icorr for which the conditions in block 328 are not satisfied) the delays to be corrected may be set in accordance with equations 29 and 30:
τana,i=Δτi (29)
for all i in the set icorr, and
τana,i=0 (30)
for all i in the set i′r.
In at least some embodiments, the operations in block 330 may be performed by a DAC scale estimator 122 and DAC scale logic 124 (
Method 300 then returns to block 312 to correct the delay mismatches in the analog loop.
Turning again to block 324, if, in block 324 for all i in the set icorr, both |Δτi|<th3 and σΔτ
iGkKF(B)=GkKF(B)+Gk,corrKF(B, Δτ), (31)
for the set of all Δτ, and where the set of bins, B has been defined in conjunction with block 314, and Gk,corrKF is defined in equations 26 and 26a for the cases of an IADC comprising N component ADCs and four component ADCs, respectively. In at least some embodiments, the Gk,corrKF may be calculated in an analog correction mismatch logic 126 (
Method 300 returns to block 304 to continuously track mismatch timing errors in the IADC.
Turning to
The above discussion is meant to be illustrative of the principles and various embodiments of the present invention. Numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace all such variations and modifications.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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4091/CHE/2015 | Aug 2015 | IN | national |