A reconfigurable optical-assisted time-interleaved ADC based on optical delay chip

Abstract

A reconfigurable optical-assisted time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters (TIADC) based on optical reconfigurable true time delay line (RTTDL) chips and an improved all-digital spectral calibration method suitable for this architecture, have been proposed and validated. This all-digital calibration method estimates and calibrates issues such as offset, gain, timing mismatches and channel response inconsistencies between channels, thereby reducing distortion in broadband signals caused by the optical-assisted TIADC architecture. Besides, the presence of RTTDL chip allows the TIADC to switch its sampling rate and easily adjust the number of channels, thereby changing the scale of the TIADC.