System embedded ADC calibration for OFDM receivers

This paper describes a background calibration technique for analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that exploits communication protocol redundancy to measure and correct for analog circuit imperfections. In particular, we consider the implementation of a 6-bit, 500-MS/s ADC in the receiver of an ultra wideband system using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The calibration is intended for a time-interleaved array of successive approximation register ADCs and cancels converter nonlinearity due to inter-channel offset mismatches. The individual channel offsets are estimated through statistical correlation, based on known pseudorandom modulation sequences used in OFDM pilot tones. Our simulation results show that the proposed calibration is capable of improving the signal-to-noise and distortion ratio from 20 to 37 dB with a tracking time constant of 85 ms, assuming an additive white Gaussian noise channel with 20-dB signal-to-noise ratio.