Noise in high-speed digital-to-analog converters

Abstract

We report on the measurement of phase noise of high speed analog to digital converters in a full digital measurement setup and for various development boards. The tested configurations ensures a Nyquist rate higher than 100 MHz suitable for conventional ultralow noise devices. Several analog to digital converters featuring a SNR higher than 140 dB enable the measurement of AM and PM noise with a background noise of -185 dBc (floor) and -160 dBc (flicker, 10 Hz off the carrier) using cross-correlation technique.