General Analysis of Resolution Enhancement on Time-Synchronized Sampling and its Multi-Resolution Solution in 20GSPS Acquisition System

• Published in: IEEE access 2019, Vol.7, p.81321-81332
• Main Authors: Huang, Wuhuang, Gao, Jian, Ye, Peng, Yang, Kuojun, Guo, Lianping, Wei, Wentao, Zhao, Yu, Pan, Zhixiang, Tian, Shulin, Wang, Houjun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analog to digital conversion; Analog to digital converters; Analog-digital conversion; Bandwidth; Data acquisition; Probability density function; Prototypes; Quantization (signal); Radar equipment; Reconfigurable hardware; resolution enhancement and multi-resolution sampling; Sampling methods; Signal resolution; Statistical analysis; Thermal noise; Time synchronization; time-synchronized analog-to-digital conversion (TSADC); Tradeoffs; Ultra-fast data acquisition system
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2923157

Multiple resolutions have become a new feature required in ultra-fast data acquisition systems (UF-DASs) for various high-end applications, especially for large-scale physical experiments and radar equipment. However, plenty of repetitive efforts are paid to build various UF-DASs with different resolutions for many similar purposes. In this paper, a system-level sampling solution featuring multi-resolution is explored for UF-DASs to make the trade-off between accuracy and speed. Firstly, a resolution enhancement mechanism based on a time-synchronized sampling technique is studied more generally with probabilistic and statistical theory, and its applicable premise is discussed quantificationally at the same time. Then, a hardware-based reconfigurable structure for the purpose of multi-resolution high-speed sampling is discussed with the combination of time-interleaved and time-synchronized sampling methods. Furthermore, to verify the proposed theory, a prototype with a maximal 20GSPS sampling rate and different resolutions of 8,9,10-bit is established. The experimental results show that three vertical resolutions of 8, 9 and 10-bit are achieved in the same prototype, and the effective-number-of-bit (ENOB) in the two higher resolution modes has been improved remarkably from a single low-resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Therefore, the proposed theory and multi-resolution sampling solution are important guides to the resolution trade-off requirement in ultra-fast acquisition systems.