Patent 7173552 was granted and assigned to Analog Devices on February, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A N-bit segmented digital to analog converter (DAC) adapted to provide an analog signal output on the basis of a digital input code, the DAC being formed from a plurality of individual segments, the segments being selectively combined to effect the output from the DAC determined by the input and wherein the number of segments is given by 2N−1+x where x is greater or equal to one, and at least one of the segments has a weighting less than that of the least significant bit (LSB) of the overall DAC.