2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20,

2017, India

Design of Novel Multiplexer Based Thermometer

to Binary Code Encoder for 4 Bit Flash ADC
Mayur, S. Marinaik
New Horizon College Of Engineering, Bengaluru,
mayur.honnavar91@gmail.com

Abstract—In this paper, a novel multiplexer based thermometer

to binary Code Encoder For 4 Bit Flash ADC is proposed. The
proposed encoder design uses 2:1 multiplexes (MUX) and 2 input
XOR gates for converting thermometer code to binary code.
Initially 2:1 MUX are used to convert the thermometer code to
equivalent gray code. The resulting gray code is then converted to
the binary code using XOR gates. Low power consumption is
achieved in the proposed design with the grounding concept and
avoiding the additional inverters compared to the conventional
encoder design. The proposed encoder is implemented in 180 nm
CMOS, N-well technology with 1.8 V supply voltage and was
simulated using Cadence Spectre simulator. Simulation results
shows reduction in power up to 60% when compared with
conventional encoder architectures. The proposed design has a
figure-of-merit (FOM) of 13.28 fJ with the propagation delay of
0.5180 ns.

Keywords— Analog to digital converters, self-re-configurable

property, figure of merit, thermometer code, gray code.

I. Introduction
Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are the important
functional unit in the signal processing, system on chip and
mixed signal design applications. ADC form the interface
between the analog environment and digital system. Among
various ADC architectures [1-4], the flash ADC [5-7] is used Fig.1 . N bit Flash ADC
for high speed and lower resolution applications. Fig 1 shows
the structure of conventional flash ADC. The flash ADC A. ROM Based Encoder
consists of 2N -1 comparators for N-bit resolution, where the ROM based encoder [10] architecture consists of two stages.
analog input is compared with the reference voltage to give the Initially, the input thermometer code is first converted to one
output as ‘0’ or ‘1’ . The comparator outputs are converted to hot code or 1-out of 2N-1 code. In the next stage, the one hot
binary code using thermometer to binary encoder. Since power code is the address location for the binary ROM. Binary ROM
and delay are the important constraints in IC design, it is is a memory location where the equivalent binary code for the
important to design ADC with high speed and less power. The thermometer code is present. But this architecture has the
encoder in the flash ADC consumes suitable amount of power disadvantage of high power consumption and large delay
and delay. Hence, a novel encoder is presented in this paper because of high static current that flows while pre-setting the
which consumes less power and delay compared to existing ROM encoder.
encoder architectures.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows: Section II B. Wallace Tree Encoder
discusses the existing Encoder architectures. In Section III, Wallace tree encoder [11] encoder basically counts the
proposed encoder design is explained. Section IV presents number of 1s in the input thermometer code. Therefore it
simulation results for the proposed design. Finally, is also called “Ones counter”. Fig 2 shows the Wallace tree
conclusions are drawn in Section V. encoder. The counter topology can be selected based on the
speed of ADC. But the architecture has disadvantage of large
II. Existing Encoders delay and power.
Various encoders [8-9] such as Wallace tree encoder, fat tree
C. Fat-Tree Based Encoder
encoder, multiplexer (MUX) based encoders are used in flash
Fat tree encoder [12] has less delay and area when compared
ADC. These encoders are discussed in following subsections.
to ROM based encoder and wallace tree encoder. Fig 3 shows
the 15 to 4 bit fat tree encoder.
978-1-5090-3704-9/17/$31.00 © 2017 IEEE
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 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India

The architecture for the proposed design is analysed first for

the 7-bit encoder. Truth table for 7: 3 thermometers to
graycode converter is shown in table I. From the table I, it is
possible to write the following expressions for the graycode
G2, G1, G0.

Fig. 2 . Wallace Tree Encoder Fig. 4. Existing MUX Based Encoder

Fat tree encoder comprises of 2 stages. The one hot code is G3 = T4

obtained in the first stage from the input thermometer code.
The output of this first stage is converted to equivalent binary G2 = T2 T6
code using multiple trees of OR gates.
D. Existing MUX Based Encoder G1 = T1T3 + T3(T7T5)
In this design [13-14] 2:1 MUX are used to achieve low power
and less delay when compared to fat tree and Wallace encoder.
Fig 4 shows the existing MUX based encoder design. The
MUX based encoder design have the advantage of self re-
configurable property[15] in which the same encoder can be
used for low resolution ADC by keeping the higher order
inputs to ‘0’ .

Fig. 5. Proposed 3-bit Encoder.

Fig. 3 . Fat Tree Encoder

Fig. 6. Proposed 3-bit Encoder.
Similarly the expressions for the output of 4-bit encoder can
be written as
III. Proposed Architecture

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 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India

G4 = T8 for the lower resolution flash ADC. Fig.4 shows how the self-
reconfigurable property is used to design 3-bit encoder from
G3 = T4T12 the 4-bit encoder.

G2 = T2T6 + T6(T10T14)

G1 = T13T1 + T3(T7T5 + T7(T11T9 + T11(T15T13)))

TABLE 1. TRUTH TABLE FOR 3- BIT ENCODER

THERMOMETER CODE GRAY CODE
T7 T6 T5 T4 T3 T2 T1 G3 G2 G1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0
Fig. 7. Gray to binary conversion.
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0

The architecture for the proposed design of 3-bit and 4-bit

encoder is shown in fig 5, 6 respectively. 2:1 MUX and 2-
input XOR gate forms the basic elements for the proposed
design. The output gray codes are implemented using 2:1
MUX and the equivalent binary code from the gray code is
obtained using 2-input XOR gates as shown in fig 7.

Here the input line ‘1’of some of the MUXs are connected to
ground terminal, to reduce the number of MUXs and avoid the
need of additional inverters when compared to the existing Fig. 8. 2:1 MUX using transmission gate logic.
MUX based design. The 2:1 MUX and 2 input XOR gates are
implemented in the transmission gate logic style [16] to
achieve low power consumption as shown in fig 8,9.

The output gray code G4 is equivalent to the input

thermometer code T8. Hence G3 is directly connected to T8.
The output code G3 is obtained from the input codes T12, T4.
The input codes T4, T12 are used to obtain the equivalent gray
code G1. T12 is used as selection line and T4 as the inputs to
MUX 1. The input codes T6, T2, T14, T10 are used to obtain
the equivalent gray code G2. T14, T6 are used as selection
lines and T10, T2 are the inputs to MUX 2, 3 respectively. The
output code G1 is obtained from input codes T13, T15, T9,
T11, T5, T7, T1 and T3 using MUX 4,5,6,7. Using the 2 input
XOR gates the output binary code is obtained from the gray Fig. 9. XOR gate using transmission gate logic.
code.
The proposed design also has the advantage of self-
The proposed design also has the advantage of self- reconfigurable property. The 4-bit encoder can be converted 3-
reconfigurable property. The 4-bit encoder can be converted bit encoder by assigning the higher order inputs T8-T15 to ‘0’
3-bit encoder by assigning the higher order inputs T8-T15 to . Similarly it can be converted to 2-bit encoder by assigning
‘0’. Similarly it can be converted to 2-bit encoder by assigning the inputs T4- T15 to ‘0’ . Thus the same encoder can be used
for the lower resolution flash ADC. Thus, the self-
reconfigurable property is used to design 3-bit encoder from
the inputs T4- T15 to ‘0’ . Thus the same encoder can be used the 4-bit encoder.

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 2017 2nd IEEE International Conference On Recent Trends in Electronics Information & Communication Technology (RTEICT), May 19-20, 2017, India

IV. Simulation Results

V. Conclusion
The proposed MUX based architecture; Wallace tree encoder
and the existing MUX based architecture are simulated in A novel MUX based Thermometer to Binary code encoder is
Cadence Spectre Simulator at 180 nm technology. The proposed in this paper. The grounding concept is used to
performance is evaluated with all the possible input logic reduce the number of MUX from 11 to 7 when compared to
states and results are tabulated in Table II. existing MUX based design. Also the need for additional
inverters is avoided in this design. The thermometer code is
TABLE 2. COMPARISION OF PROPOSED MUX BASED first encoded to its equivalent gray code and then the graycode
ENCODERS WITH THE EXISTING ENCODER is converted to binary code using XOR gates. The proposed
ARCHITECTURES. encoder design has a power consumption of 25.64 PW with
the FOM of 13.28 fJ. The proposed encoder can be used for
low resolution flash ADC with the self-re-configurable
Architecture Power Delay FOM property.
Consumption (ns) (fJ)
PW)
(P References

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