ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER, METHOD FOR OPERATING AN ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER AND METHOD FOR CONVERTING AN ANALOG INPUT SIGNAL INTO A DIGITAL OUTPUT SIGNAL

摘要

The invention relates to an analog-to-digital converter (10) which functions on the basis of the principle of successive approximation and comprises a network (11) with weighted reference elements (12), which are formed at least partially by capacitors (C), which each have a first plate (19) and a second plate (20), a comparator (14), the first input of said comparator being connected to the second plates (20) of the capacitors, and a reference voltage (V_ref) being applied to the second input of said comparator, a first switching unit (22), via which the first plates (19) can optionally be connected to a first input voltage (V_in1) or to ground, a second switching unit (24), via which the second plates (20) can optionally be connected to a second input voltage (V_in2) or so as to be highly resistive, and a monitoring unit (15), which is connected downstream of the comparator (14) and which comprises a data register (26) for buffer-storing output signals from the comparator (14) and a control unit (27) for driving the network (11) as well as the first switching unit (22) and the second switching unit (24). The differential analog-to-digital converter according to the invention is characterized by a low level of complexity in terms of circuitry, a low area requirement and a low power consumption.