A comprehensive estimation method of phase error in the frequency-interleaving digital-to-analog converter

Abstract

This letter studied the phase error in the frequency-interleaving digital-to-analog converter (FI-DAC) and proposed a comprehensive phase estimation method. Firstly, the model of FI-DAC system was established, and the phase error were considered that consists of three parts: time delay error, initial phase error and nonlinear phase error. By analyzing the phase function characteristics of the system, the least squares (LS) was used to linearly fit the phase functions of the non-overlapping bands to estimate both the time delay and initial phase of each sub-band channel. Then, the nonlinear phase error of the system was estimated by the difference between the system phase function and the estimated linear phase function. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed estimation method was verified by the built FI-DAC test bench.