Effects of Oscillator Phase Noise on Frequency Delta Sigma Modulators with a High Oversampling Ratio for Sensor Applications

Frequency delta sigma modulation (FDSM) is a unique analog to digital conversion technique featuring large dynamic range with wide frequency band width. It can be used for high performance digital-output sensors, if the oscillator in the FDSM is replaced by a variable frequency oscillator whose frequency depends on a certain external physical quantity. One of the most important parameters governing the performance of these sensors is a phase noise of the oscillator. The phase noise is an essential error source in the FDSM, and it is quite important for this type of sensors because they use a high frequency oscillator and an extremely large oversampling ratio. In this paper, we will discuss the quantitative effects of the phase noise on the FDSM output on the basis of a simple model. The model was validated with experiments for three types of oscillators.