EE 699 – DELTA SIGMA DATA CONVERTERS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

Instructor: Prof. Pramod Murali

Session: 2019-2020

Prerequisites: There is no official prerequisite but concepts from Analog Circuits, Signals and Systems are heavily used. A background in CMOS VLSI Design (EE618) is recommended because the project involves designing a DSM in Cadence. Knowledge of MATLAB is very useful but this can also be learnt along the way.

Course content and structure: The course has 7 modules but we could only complete 3 in class owing to suspension of Autumn semester.

Module 1 : Terminology in Analog to Digital Converters Module 2 : Comparison of Nyquistvs. Oversampled Data Converters, First Order Delta Sigma (DS) Modulators Module 3 : Second and Higher Order DS modulators Module 4 : Continuous Time DS Modulators Module 5 : DS Digital to Analog Converters Module 6 : Decimation Filters Module 7 : System-Level Applications of DS Modulators

Feedback on lectures: Lectures were very interesting and slow to moderately paced. The instructor always uploaded lecture notes so that we could focus on the concepts being discussed when in class. He frequently interacted with the students and clarified our doubts promptly. Very often he couldn’t complete the content that he intended to during allotted lecture time so he would end up extending the lecture by 5-10 mins.

Feedback on tutorials and exams:

Grading scheme : Quiz: 4x(10%) = 40% Mid-Sem Exam: 20% Course Project: 20% End-Sem Exam: 20%

The quizzes had objective type questions which very pretty easy. The midsem had subjective questions which were slightly more involved than the quizzes but quite easy. For the course project we were given the freedom to choose a topic of our interest related to some current literature on DSMs. Projects had to be done in a group of 2. We were expected to design at least one block from the entire system at transistor level in Cadence.

Project and Endsem components were excluded from the final grading scheme due to suspension of semester.

Difficulty (on a scale of 1 being very easy to 5 being very hard): 3

Textbooks & References:

Main reference: Understanding delta-sigma data converters by Shanthi Pavan, Richard Schreier, and Gabor C. Temes Additional resources :

• Journal of Solid State Circuits (JSSC)
• International Conference on Solid State Circuits (ISSCC)
• VLSI Conference (VLSI)

Grading Statistics:

AA 5 AB 5 BB 4 BC 4 CC 2 CD 3 S 3 Total 26

Additional comments & what you learnt from the course: This course content is aimed at providing in depth knowledge about one particular type of Data Converter and therefore may not be suitable for someone who is looking for a higher level view on different ADCs/DACs. Most of the students who take this course are PGs because you are expected to study some research papers and apply those ideas in the project. Unfortunately, I missed out on the project part of the course due to suspension of semester.

Reviewed by – Mihir Kavishwar (mihir.kavishwar710@gmail.com)