Title: Time-interleaved digitisation systems for time of flight mass spectrometry: a review

Authors: R.S. Karthic; R. Ragumadhavan; K.R. Aravind Britto; R. Vimala; M. Arivalagan

Addresses: Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, P.S.N.A College of Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu 624622, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, P.S.N.A College of Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu 624622, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, P.S.N.A College of Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu 624622, India ' Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, P.S.N.A College of Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu 624622, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Nadar Saraswathi College of Engineering and Technology, Vadapudupatti, Theni Allinagaram, Tamil Nadu 625531, India

Abstract: We consider time-interleaved analogue-to-digital converters (TIADCs) to realise higher sampling rate, high speed systems such as time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ToF-MS). TIADC has inherent offset, gain and timing mismatch errors. Out of these errors, time skew, a function of input signal frequency, degrades system performance and hence the resolution and resolving power of ToF-MS. This paper reviews the various time skew detection and correction mechanisms. We consider analogue, digital, background and foreground based detection and correction methods. Analogue methods are slow and noise prone. Digital background methods use filter banks and are computationally intensive with convergence issues. Input signal statistics based method like blind digital background correction algorithms impose additional constraints like the necessity of wide sense stationary (WSS) and thus require statistical information of the input signal. Digital foreground perfect reconstruction method uses a pilot tone to detect and correct errors. This method is applicable only to narrow bandwidth signal.

Keywords: time skew; time-interleaved analogue-to-digital converters; TIADCs; time-of-flight mass spectrometry; ToF-MS; foreground; background.

DOI: 10.1504/WRSTSD.2022.119328

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 2022 Vol.18 No.1, pp.59 - 73

Received: 29 Jul 2019
Accepted: 23 Jul 2020
Published online: 01 Dec 2021 *

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