Ultra-low-power, radiation-hardened 12-bit analog-to-digital converter for space-based electro-optical sensors

We have achieved a breakthrough in analog-to-digital converter (ADC) technology by demonstrating a robust, self-correcting 12-bit ADC ASIC architecture with about six times lower power dissipation than existing devices. The prototype ADC has noise and average differential nonlinearities so low that we believe it has the resolution required for 14 bits. The measured ADC power dissipation is 100 mW at 6 megasamples per second (MSPS)-six times lower than that of the best commercially available radiation-hardened ADC, which has only 11 effective bits of resolution. Four sample ADCs fabricated in a commercial, non-radiation-hardened process worked perfectly at total dose levels up to 50 krad(Si), a level sufficient for many space programs. The productized ADC is expected to be extremely radiation hardened: >300 krad(Si).