US Patent 7405689 Predictive analog to digital converters and methods of using

Methods and devices perform analog to digital signal conversion in shorter time and/or with less power consumption than that of a comparable analog to digital conversion that uses a conventional sequential approximation method based on a binary search. A predictive guess is supplied as a digital first signal. The digital first signal is converted (D/A) to a counterpart, analog guess signal. Fewer cycles and less power is consumed if the initial guess is within a certain range of the actual magnitude of the analog input sample signal. In one embodiment, a digital modeler is used to model a process underlying the analog input sample signal to thereby provide fairly good guesses.