Hi, Jay,

Go to www.maxim-ic.com. There are some very good application note about ADC testing.


Best wishes
Yawei

Hi Jay,

I was happened to do the same task as you are. For a start, I would suggest you to read some articles on ADC characteristics i.e. DC and AC Performance. There are few website that provides excellent explanation on this.
You can go to:
http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes10.cfm/ac_pk/2
https://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ee247/fa04/fa04/lectures/L11_f04.pdf
http://larc.ee.nthu.edu.tw/~jcbor/MMWirelessIC/MMWIC_lecture32_C3a.pdf

There are a lot more if you try google search engine. The ADC characteristics should includes Dynamic Range, SFDR,SNR,THD,INL,DNL,Offset gain error etc....
These information should give you good starting point.

Then try to read HSpice manual on how to perform Fast Fourier Transform FFT plot. This analysis should give information about AC performance such as Spurious Free Dynamic Range, SNR, noise floor and etc.

For DC performance such as INL,DNL, Im not sure how to simulate using HSpice. But you can use matlab for this purpose...(I guess its much more faster).

HSpice Manual -  http://www.utdallas.edu/~poras/courses/ee6325/lab/hspice/hspice_qrg.pdf

Jay,

 In the CADENCE ICX reference ahdl library, there are a dnl
and an inl testbench modules. The current models are rather
limited, for example, 8 bit, single-ended ADCs. However, it is
easy to modify the cells. In an append to another e-mail
thread, an example of a testbench setup for SFDR
was discussed. The same testbench can be used for
measuring THD. However, unless you are performing
transient noise sumulation or are including noise in a
behavioral model and simulating, the SNR simulation is
going to measure the ADC quantitazation noise floor, (not
very interesting).  


                                                         Best Regards,

                                                             Art Schaldenbrand