US Patent 7397403 Range compression in oversampling analog-to-digital converters using differential input signals

An analog-to-digital converter according to the invention is provided. The analog-to-digital converter preferably includes an analog input signal, a first reference signal, a second reference signal, and a range compression signal. The range compression signal is preferably characterized by a magnitude greater than the first reference signal and smaller than the second reference signal. In addition, when the analog input signal is sampled N times and the range compression signal is sampled N1 times, a compression factor related at least in part to the ratio N1/(N+N1) is obtained.