Performance/power tradeoffs in high-speed GaAs ADCs

While designing very high-speed analog-to-digital converters, the power consumption is usually neglected in the search for performance. However, it should be taken into account, for commercial reasons as well as for technical ones (cooling issues). The converter architecture is of a critical importance for optimizing the performance/power tradeoff of a converter. The aim of this paper is to decide, for a given technology, in this case a GaAs MESFET technology, which architecture exhibits the best trade-off between power consumption and performances.