A multichannel bandwidth‐interleaved (BI) framework with digital back‐end correction of mismatch errors is explored to simultaneously increase the sample‐rate and bandwidth of the ADCs. In addition to the consideration of channel frequency‐response mismatch and aliasing error associated with sampling, the autocorrelation matrix of magnitude response is introduced to evaluate the performance of overlapping cancellation between the nearby subbands. Simulation results and analytical calculations are provided to verify the efficacy of the proposed correction approach.

The presence of frequency response mismatches (FRMs) in time-interleaved (TI) systems can severely degrade system performance. In addition, it is difficult to represent FRMs in generalized TI systems using low-order polynomials or physical circuits, which complicates the design of calibration methods. In this study, first, we propose a digital time-interleaved (DTI) structure to establish a relationship between the TI system and a periodic time-varying filter. The DTI structure uses less resources in time-varying filter implementation than the method that utilizing filters and multipliers. We also develop a cascaded calibration model and its equivalent noncascaded form based on the DTI structure. The equivalent noncascaded form uses only one time-varying filter rather than cascades multiple time-varying filters, which is a significant advantage because it can improve the calibration performance without increasing hardware resources during implementation. Furthermore, a filtering process was included in the frequency domain, rather than in the time domain, to cope with the challenges of designing an arbitrary frequency response filter. Simulations based on a four-channel generalized frequency response TI system showed that the proposed method achieved more than 45-dB spur-free dynamic range (SFDR) improvements if measurements of frequency responses are unbiased. Also, more than 60-dB SFDR can be achieved even if a ±5% estimation bias in the measurement of frequency responses. Errors between calibration frames were also minimized by introducing an overlapping frame technique, which ensured that the algorithm could calibrate large data quantities with high precision. Calibration was also implemented in a real four-channel 10 gigabit sampling per second (GSPS) system. Results indicated that the spurious-free dynamic range increased from 47.27 to 62.21 dB at a 5-GHz bandwidth after calibration.

The band interleaved data acquisition system (BI-DAS) is an attractive structure to improve the bandwidth of the acquisition system. However, the non-ideal characteristic of the spectrum analysis filter in BI-DAS results in an overlapping frequency band between two adjacent frequency sub-bands. Phase misalignment (PM) between two sub-bands in the overlapping band may cause those signals canceled or partially canceled to each other when sub-bands’ signal are merged. In this paper, a compensation module with a digital all-pass filter (APF) is proposed for the PM of the overlapping bands in BI-DASs. Based on this compensation module, a hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, along with the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm is proposed to design coefficients of the compensation module. The compensation module and corresponding method proposed in this paper are verified in a BI-DAS with 20Gsps sampling rate and 5.5GHz bandwidth. The experimental results show that the proposed compensation module can effectively compensate the PM between the sub-bands in the overlapping band. The proposed hybrid PSO-LM (HPSOLM) algorithm combines the flexibility and reliability inherent in the PSO with the fast convergence and precision of the LM algorithm. It can effectively design the compensation module with stable APF while consuming less time and obtaining better compensation results than the conventional PSO method.

Time interleaving (TI) technique is widely used in acquisition systems to improve the sampling rate. However, as a parallel sampling structure, it inevitably brings in channel mismatches, such as the offset mismatch, gain mismatch, and time mismatch. Moreover, the gain mismatch and time mismatch are frequency-dependent, which means that the gain mismatch and time mismatch will be different when the signal frequency changes. This is because the gain and time mismatches are the special circumstances of frequency response mismatches. In this paper, a frequency response mismatch estimation method in TI acquisition systems is proposed and analyzed. First, the two kinds of mismatch models are compared to find the relationship between frequency response mismatches and the gain and time mismatches. Then, a mismatch estimation method that can estimate mismatches when the analog bandwidth exceeds the sampling rate of a single channel in a time interleaving analog to digital converter is proposed. Sinusoids with different frequencies are utilized to convert the question of estimating frequency response mismatches to acquiring the mismatch coefficients at a series of frequency points. Furthermore, a semi-automatic estimation technique is proposed to reduce the operation time, and a 10 GSPS eight-channel TI system is introduced. Simulations show the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method. At last, the frequency response mismatches are calibrated by using the estimated parameters. The calibration improves the performance of an eight-channel TI system from the original spurious free dynamic range of 27.6639 to 56.7029 dB and signal-to-noise ratio of 25.5468 to 32.7667 dB. The calibration result demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed method.

Because of the exponential increase of sampling rate, time-interleaved analog-to-digital converter (TIADC) has a fast growth in the high-speed applications. However, the channel mismatch error is a serious challenge for the performance of TIADC. In this article, we address the timing skew mismatch error and propose a novel adaptive calibration method. The principle and operating process of the calibration algorithm are explained. To validate the proposed technique, we designed a four-channel TIADC-based digital oscilloscope with a sampling rate of 10 GS/s. Based on this instrumentation platform, (i) calibration algorithm was implemented by hardware; and (ii) a test platform consisting of advanced instruments and tools was setup to testify the effect and robustness of proposed algorithm. Moreover, the technical details of instrumentation are described for the first time. The experimental results show that the calibration algorithm significantly suppresses the distortions due to timing skew mismatch error. The TIADC-based instrumentation achieves spurious-free dynamic range of 52.48 dB and effective number of bits of 5.83 bit, respectively. Besides, the complexity of the proposed algorithm is compared and discussed.

The surface of a centrifugal microfluidic immunoassay system chip such as polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is often hydrophobic, which leads to problems such as poor liquid transfer efficiency and easy-to-block siphon channels, leading to bad fluid control. Therefore, surface hydrophilic modification for such chips is necessary to improve the rapidity and sensitivity of the system. Chemical modification is commonly used, but there is little research on the hydrophilic effect of different concentrations of hydrophilic reagents. According to function requirements for different microchannels of the chip (some only need to ensure the liquid can flow into the next chamber, and some also need to ensure the function of “closing the door” during immunoassay incubation), we explored the best combination of hydrophilic reagent and concentration through experiments. Firstly, three hydrophilic reagents were used for modification. Secondly, the hydrophilic effects of different reagents and concentrations were explored by contact angle test, the influence of different modification methods on liquid transfer efficiency was characterized by residual liquid calculation in the chamber. Finally, the effect of different hydrophilic reagents on absorbance was also tested. By experimental results and comprehensively considering the stability of the modification effect and the function requirements, Tween-20 (2.0% v/v) was chosen as the modifying reagents of the first siphon valve and the second siphon valve, and TritonX-100 (2.0% v/v) was chosen for the third siphon valve, which effectively reduces the contact angle and improves the liquid transfer efficiency, leading to further improvement of the rapidity and sensitivity of the centrifugal microfluidic immunoassay system by efficient siphoning and high plasma separation efficiency (99%).