A stacked analog-to-digital converter providing 100 dB of dynamic range

Abstract

The dynamic range requirements of a modern radar system far exceed the dynamic range attainable with available ADC technology. Traditional ways of overcoming these dynamic range limitations, including STC, AGC, and IF limiting, have serious drawbacks. The stacked ADC concept was developed to address the dynamic range limitations without the drawbacks of the traditional mitigation techniques. To demonstrate the concept, an experimental system based on the concept was built and tested. The resulting system demonstrated a dynamic range improvement over COTS ADCs of 30 dB, providing a total dynamic range of 100 dB.