AN-1141 APPLICATION NOTE

One Technology Way P.O. Box 9106 Norwood, MA 02062-9106, U.S.A. Tel: 781.329.4700 Fax: 781.461.3113 www.analog.com

Powering a Dual Supply Precision ADC with Switching Regulators

by Rui Du

INTRODUCTION
Compared with an LDO device, a switching regulator always dissipates much less heat and provides higher efficiency. Therefore, a switching regulator is suitable for powering different kinds of portable devices or the nodes in a wireless sensor network to lengthen battery time. Unfortunately, a switching regulator intrinsically generates ripple and noise at both the output rail and the ground. At the same time, a switching regulator brings electromagnetic radiation. These interferences are almost inevitable due to the continuously on-off operation of the power switch. With the parasitic parameters involved, the noise will be present at unexpected frequency points besides the integer multiple of the switching frequency.
NOISE

There are two options to power the ADC with switching regulators: A. Select a low noise switching regulator and then use carefully designed filtering and shielding methods to remove as much of the noise as possible. B. Estimate the noise suppressing capability of the data converter, and then select the product, which has good noise-immunity performance. In practice, both options can be used at the same time so that the power solution of using a switching regulator can be acceptable in most cases. The switching regulator solution includes the benefits of high efficiency and low temperature. In CN-0137, a dual-output synchronous buck switching regulator, ADP2114, is used to power the 16-bit, 125 MSPS analog-to-digital converter, AD9268. The outputs of ADP2114 are filters using an extra stage of an LC filter (ferrite bead). Compared with the linear supplies solution, the testing result shows that using a dc-to-dc supply has nearly no influences on the performance of the ADC (see Table 1). Table 1. Experiment Results Reported in CN-0137
Analog Input Frequency (MHz) 10.3 70.0 100.3 140.3 170.3 200.3 Linear Supplies SNR SFDR (dBFS) (dBc) 79.2 92.2 78.5 91.0 77.8 85.8 76.9 85.0 76.2 84.3 75.0 76.9 DC-to-DC Supply SNR SFDR (dBFS) (dBc) 79.2 92.3 78.4 90.8 77.7 85.6 76.9 84.8 75.9 84.6 75.0 77.0

RIPPLE

Figure 1. Typical Ripple and Noise at the Output of a Switching Regulator

Although damaged from the noise issues, if the interference of the switching regulator can be effectively controlled while the circuit is powered by a switching regulator, which has a strong anti-interference capacity, then the degrading of the system performance will be slight. For a typical application, when a data converter is powered by a switching mode power supply (SMPS), keep the total noise over the band of interest lower than the noise floor to prevent it from being seen by the converter. Although the in-band noise from the switching regulator is normally greater than the noise floor, because of the power rejection ratio of the ADC, the noise will be sharply attenuated before entering the signal path; as a result, the switching noise will not degrade the performance of the ADC.

10481-001

The noise performance of the ADP2114 is guaranteed by multiple technologies implemented in the design. The typical voltage ripple is less than 1 mV. Using additional filtering, its noise performance can even align with linear supplies.

Rev. 0 | Page 1 of 8

AN-1141 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 Experiment Results........................................................................... 3 Experiment 1 ................................................................................. 5 Experiment 2 ................................................................................. 6

Application Note
Filtering Considerations ...................................................................7 Conclusion..........................................................................................8 References ...........................................................................................8

REVISION HISTORY
2/12Revision 0: Initial Version

Rev. 0 | Page 2 of 8

Application Note
EXPERIMENT RESULTS
In this application note, a switching regulator is used to power the ADC without any additional filtering or shielding measures, only the necessary external components kept for normal operation of the dc-to-dc power supply. According to the second option mentioned previously, two power-insensitive ADCs, the AD7610 and AD7612 are used for testing. This application note aims at finding out how much harm is brought by the SMPS to the ADC and whether it is acceptable. The AD7610 and AD7612 are 16-bit charge redistribution successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters. They feature true bipolar analog input range. The analog input signal should never exceed the supply rails by more than 0.3 V. For 10 V input, a typical power supply is 12 V. See the AD7610 and AD7612 data sheets available from www.analog.com. More importantly, the AD7610 and AD7612 provide excellent power rejection ratio. They are very insensitive to power supply variations on AVDD over a wide frequency range (see Figure 2).
80 EXTERNAL REF 75 70 65 INTERNAL REF
100 90 80 70

AN-1141

CMRR (dB)

60 50 40 30 20 10
10481-004
10481-005

0 1 10 100 FREQUENCY (kHz) 1k 10k

Figure 4. Analog Input CMRR vs. Frequency of AD7610 or AD7612

For powering the AD7610 and AD7612, a 5 V to 12 V power module using the ADP1613 (the boost dc-to-dc converts 5 V to 12 V) and ADP2301 (the inverting dc-to-dc converts +5 V to 12 V) was designed. For more information about the inverting converter application of ADP2301, refer to the AN-1083 Application Note. The power solution is made to help those customers, who only have 5 V on-board to generate 12 V with high-current ability and high-efficiency (see Figure 5).
L

PSRR (dB)

60 55 50

45 40 35
10481-002

VIN

VIN EN CIN FREQ

SW

VOUT+ Rf1

ADP1613
FB

30 1 10 100 FREQUENCY (kHz) 1k 10k

Rf2 SS CSS GND COMP RCOMP CCOMP COUT

Figure 2. AVDD PSRR vs. Frequency of AD7610 or AD7612

Figure 3 shows an equivalent circuit for the input structure of the AD7610 and AD7612. The analog input is first handled by the high voltage branches (powered by VCC and VEE) and scaled down to 0 V to 5 V.
0V TO 5V RANGE ONLY VCC D1 IN+ OR IN CPIN VEE AGND D2 D4
EN
10481-003

GND CIN

VIN CP

BST

AVDD D3 RIN CIN

ADP2301
SW

CBOOT L D FB Rf1

GND COUT

GND

Rf2 VOUT

Figure 3. Simplified Analog Input Structure of AD7610 or AD7612

This analog input structure allows the sampling of the differential signal between IN+ and IN. By using this differential input, small signals common to both inputs are rejected as shown in Figure 4, which represents the typical CMRR over frequency.

Figure 5. Schematic of the 5 V to 12 V Power Module Using ADP1613 or

ADP2301

Rev. 0 | Page 3 of 8

AN-1141
For a SMPS, the output-voltage ripple can be suppressed by using a big inductor and output capacitor in the topology. To deal with the switching noise, an extra filter at the output can be used. By doing this, the PCB area will be sacrificed. The basic configuration of the 5 V to 12 V power modules is shown in Table 2. Table 2. Basic Configuration for the 12 V Power Modules
Configuration Switching Frequency Output Inductor Input Capacitor Output Capacitor Maximum Load +12 V 1.3 MHz 10 H 10 F 10 F 400 mA Output 12 V 1.4 MHz 8.2 H 10 F 44 F 200 mA
T

Application Note

CH1 20.0mV

BW

M 1.00s A CH1 T 172.000ns

0.00V

Figure 8. AC-Coupled Output Voltage of the 12 V Rail

T

Note the following about the ripple and noise performance under the typical loading (50% of full load): For the +12 V rail of the power module: the ripple 20 mV p-p the noise 140 mV p-p (oscilloscope in 1 M mode) For the 12 V rail of the power module: the ripple 10 mV p-p the noise 50 mV p-p (oscilloscope in 1 M mode)

T

CH1 20.0mV

BW

M 100s A CH1 T 200.000ns

0.00V

Figure 9. Filtered Output Voltage of the 12 V Rail (AC-Coupled)

When 2-stage filters are added to the output (the first stage is the LC filter, and the second stage is the bead + decoupling capacitor), most of the ripple and noise can be removed. However, in all the experiments mentioned in this application note, the original output, no extra filters, was used.
CH1 50.0mV
BW

M 400ns T 0.00000s

A CH1

0.00V

Figure 6. AC-Coupled Output Voltage of the +12 V Rail

T

CH1 20.0mV

BW

M 40.0s A CH1 T 160.000ns

0.00V

Figure 7. Filtered Output Voltage of the +12 V Rail (AC-Coupled)

Rev. 0 | Page 4 of 8

10481-007

10481-006

10481-009

10481-008

Application Note
EXPERIMENT 1
The first experiment was performed based on AD7612-EVAL and ADuC7026-EVAL. The ADuC7026-EVAL was used to read the conversion results. The input range of AD7612 is configured as 5 V. The analog inputs of AD7612 (IN+ and IN) are both directly grounded, the input buffers on the evaluation board are bypassed (see Figure 10).
AD7612
10481-010

AN-1141
14500 14000 13500 13000 12500 12000 11500 11000 10500 10000 9500 9000 8500 8000 7500 7000 6500 6000 5500 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 1 2 LSB 3 4

Figure 10. Simplified Schematic for Experiment 1. The 3 dB Bandwidth of the Input Anti-Aliasing Filter is about 4 MHz.

NUMBER OF COUNTS

Two power supply configurations were used in the experiment:

Configuration A: VCC and VEE of the AD7612 are powered by the 12 V power module based on ADP1613 and ADP2301. The +5 V AVDD and DVDD are powered by high quality linear dc power. Configuration B: For comparison, VCC, VEE, AVDD, and DVDD are all provided by the high quality linear dc power.

Figure 12. Testing ResultsHistogram for Power Supply Configuration B

Following are the calculations for mean and variance: For Configuration A, mu () = 2.0729 LSB sigma () = 0.3857 LSB The peak-to-peak noise 2.5456 LSB peak-to-peak resolution

During the test, 16,384 conversions were performed. The testing results for Configuration A and Configuration B are shown in Figure 11 and Figure 12.
14500 14000 13500 13000 12500 12000 11500 11000 10500 10000 9500 9000 8500 8000 7500 7000 6500 6000 5500 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 1 2 LSB 3 4

NUMBER OF COUNTS

216 log 2 2.5456 log 2 10 4.411 14.65 bits

For an interval estimation, The 95% confidence interval of is [2.0670, 2.0788] The 95% confidence interval of is [0.3816, 0.3900] For Configuration B, mu () = 2.0721 LSB sigma () = 0.3930 LSB The peak-to-peak noise 2.5938 LSB peak-to-peak resolution

10481-011

LSB 0x0000 0x0001 0x0002 0x0003 0x0004

NUMBER OF COUNTS 0 664 13862 1857 1 2.0729 0.3857

216 log 2 log 2 10 4.403 14.63 bits 2.5938

For an interval estimation, The 95% confidence interval of is [2.0661, 2.0781] The 95% confidence interval of is [0.3888, 0.3973] The change of peak-to-peak resolution is within 0.03 bit, using SNR = 6.02 N + 1.76. The change of the SNR is within 0.2 dB.

Figure 11. Testing ResultsHistogram for Power Supply Configuration A

Rev. 0 | Page 5 of 8

10481-012

LSB 0x0000 0x0001 0x0002 0x0003 0x0004

NUMBER OF COUNTS 0 717 13769 1898 0 2.0721 0.393

AN-1141
EXPERIMENT 2
The second experiment was performed based on the AD7610-EVAL. The FIFO board (EVAL-Control BRDXZ) and the evaluation software were used to analyze the conversion results. The input range of AD7610 is configured as 5 V. The input buffers are enabled (AD8021). The inputs of AD8021s are both grounded. The AD8021 is dual-supply operation, using the same 12 V rails as AD7610 (see Figure 13).
0.0006 0.0003
am

Application Note

0.0004

0.0005

0.0007

0.0008

AD8021 AD7610

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.10

0.12

0.14

Figure 15. Time Domain Waveform for Power Supply, Configuration B

4500
10481-013

AD8021

4000 3500 3000

Figure 13. Simplified Schematic for Experiment 2. The 3 dB Bandwidth of the Input Anti-Aliasing Filter is about 4 MHz.

Two power supply configurations were used in the experiment: Configuration A: Using high quality linear dc power to provide +12 V VCC, 12 V VEE, +5 V AVDD, and +5 V DVDD (and power the input buffer). Configuration B: Using high quality linear dc power to provide +5 V AVDD, +5 V DVDD; using 12 V SMPS to provide +12 V VCC, 12 V VEE (and to power the input buffer).

2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 7FF9

10481-016
10481-017

7FFA

7FFB

7FFC

7FFD

7FFE

7FFF

8000

The testing results for Configuration A and Configuration B are shown in Figure 14 to Figure 19.
0.0003
am

Figure 16. Histogram for Power Supply, Configuration A

5500 5000 4500
m

0.0004

4000 3500

0.0005

3000 2500

0.0006

2000 1500 1000

0.0007 500 0 7FF9

0.0008 0 0.005 0.010 0.015 0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035

10481-014

7FFA

7FFB

7FFC

7FFD

7FFE

7FFF

8000

Figure 17. Histogram for Power Supply, Configuration B

Figure 14. Time Domain Waveform for Power Supply, Configuration A

Rev. 0 | Page 6 of 8

10481-015

Application Note
70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
10481-018

AN-1141
FILTERING CONSIDERATIONS
As a second-order filter, the LC filter provides a sharp roll-off above its resonant frequency and is widely used at the output of the dc-to-dc power supply. However, normally the performance of the switching regulator is only specified for the resistive load. If a LC filter is inserted between the dc-to-dc power supply and the resistive load, the dc-to-dc power supply sees a new complex load present at the output:

ZL

R sL s 2 LCR 1 sCR
ZL

where s is the complex variable in Laplace transform.

ZIN

Figure 18. Spectrum for Power Supply, Configuration A

70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
10481-019 10481-020

DC-DC

Figure 20. DC-to-DC with Input/Output LC Filters

From this point of view, as a closed-loop system, the load condition affects the dc-to-dcs loop transfer function. The bandwidth and the phase margin of the closed-loop system are altered, which may even cause stability issues. The influence of the additional filter on the dc-to-dc is complicated. As an approximation, within an appropriate range, the transient behavior of the dcto-dc power supply with an extra LC filter is similar to the step response of a series RLC tank. Following are some semi-experiential guidelines for choosing the LC filter, which may help to improve the stability of the design.

Figure 19. Spectrum for Power Supply, Configuration B

For Configuration A, SNR = 93.40 dB SINAD = 93.39 dB For Configuration B, SNR = 93.20 dB SINAD = 93.18 dB The impact on the noise performance of the AD7610 and AD7612 caused by the SMPS is very limited. The SNR has only about 0.1 dB to 0.2 dB variation and there is almost no change in ENOB. If an extra filter is added for the SMPS, the results should be even better. In the AD7610 and AD7612 data sheets, the frequency response of PSRR for AVDD is specified. From the experiment results, it seems that VCC and VEE also have impressive PSRR specifications.

Normally its safe to set the resonant frequency of the LC filter to be higher than the original loop bandwidth of the dc-to-dc. If the resonant frequency had to be made lower, try to use smaller inductance and bigger capacitance (lower Q).

Rev. 0 | Page 7 of 8

AN-1141
Figure 21 and Figure 22 shows the simulation results for the frequency response and the transient response of different LC filters. A group of inductance and capacitance is used, while the resonant frequency of the LC tank remains unchanged. Figure 21 and Figure 22 show the waveform of the output voltage during load-transient courses: the excessive waveform is measured before the additional LC filter; the lagging waveform is measured after the additional LC filter. With the increasing of inductance, ringing is present during the load-transient.
50 0 50 100

Application Note
A measured result for ADP1613 (12 V output) is shown in Figure 23. With an extra LC filter added to the output (L = 4.7 H, C = 10 F), the noise is greatly reduced, while the transient response doesnt change a lot, and the system is stable.

ORIGINAL OUTPUT 1T 2T FILTERED OUTPUT

LOAD STEP 3
10481-023

IZI (dB)

150 200 250 300 350 400 1 2 3 4 FREQUENCY (kHz) 5 6 7 8 9 10 L = 30H, C = 33F L = 20H, C = 50F L = 10H, C = 100F

Figure 23. Transient Response of ADP1613 (12 V Output) with the Output LC Filter Inserted

CONCLUSION
The AD7610 and AD7612 have excellent power rejection performance. Their differential inputs ensure the commonmode rejection capability within a certain frequency range. When the power supply is designed for these kinds of ADCs, a switching regulator can be considered. With the help of external filtering and shielding units, the noise characters of the SMPS will be improved further. For energy-constrained applications, if the system to be powered has good noise rejection ability, coupled with the filtering and the shielding measures, use of SMPS will improve the energy efficiency but not degrade the performance of the system.
10481-021

Figure 21. Frequency Response of Different LC Filters (with a Fixed Resistive Load)
3.6 3.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.1 3.0 3.50 3.45 3.40 3.35 3.30 3.25 3.20 3.15 3.10 3.05 3.45 3.40 3.35 3.30 3.25 3.20 3.15 3.10 L = 30H C = 33F ORIGINAL OUTPUT FILTERED OUTPUT

VOLTAGE (V)

L = 20H C = 50F

ORIGINAL OUTPUT FILTERED OUTPUT

REFERENCES
AD7610 Data Sheet. Analog Devices, Inc. 2006. AD7612 Data Sheet. Analog Devices, Inc. 2006. CN-0137. Powering the AD9268 Dual Channel, 16-bit, 125 MSPS
10481-022

L = 10H C = 100F

ORIGINAL OUTPUT FILTERED OUTPUT

2.6

2.8

3.0

3.2

3.4 3.6 TIME (ms)

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

Analog-to-Digital Converter with the ADP2114 Synchronous Step-Down DC-to-DC Regulator for Increased Efficiency. Analog Devices, Inc. 2009. Kessler, Matthew C. AN-1083 Application Note. Designing an Inverting Buck Boost Using the ADP2300 and ADP2301 Switching Regulators. Analog Devices, Inc.

Figure 22. Transient Response of the DC-DC with Different Output LC Filters Inserted

2012 Analog Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. AN10481-0-2/12(0)

Rev. 0 | Page 8 of 8