Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms involved in designing high speed analog-to-digital converter frontends, is sometimes like an art all in its own. Simply plopping a balun down and drawing two trace lines from the balun’s secondary outputs to the ADC’s inputs is not something that is recommended in any high-speed analog receiver frontend design. Baluns are notorious for being parasitic sensitive on bandwidth (BW), along with other nuisances. Here in this paper, we reveal a few ways to get the most out of your passive analog input design using a balun. The added benefit, is that you do not need a costly balun nor a costly attenuation pad between the two devices to achieve the BW you are looking for. So sit back, grab a beverage, as we unveil the fine art of tuning for BW and distortion.