SBAA531 November 2021 ADS8860 , ADS8862 , ADS8881 , ADS9110 , ADS9224R
Some of the noise applied to the reference input of a SAR ADC is in the digitized output signal. The reference noise detects the bandwidth restrictions from a filter formed by the reference capacitor CREF and input switch resistance RSH. The reference capacitor value is typically one-fourth the sample and hold capacitor. In this example CSH is 55 pF so the reference capacitor is 55 pF / 4 = 13.75 pF.
Reference noise is also impacted by the input signal level. For a 0-V input signal, no reference noise appears at the output and for a full-scale signal, all the reference noise appears at the output. Figure 2-8 illustrates the noise scaling inside the model.
Another aspect of the data converter voltage reference input is that droop in the ideal reference voltage causes a gain error on the ADC. For example, if the ideal reference voltage is 5 V and the actual reference droops to 4.99 V this introduces a 0.2% error in the measured output signal (100 × (4.99 V – 5 V) / 5 V = 0.2%). The reference circuit shown in Figure 2-8 also models this behavior. Note that the input called Vref_ideal is used to set the ideal reference value. This input floats to the VREF parameter if it is not connected. If a different Vref_ideal is desired, the pin can be driven as needed.