DIGITAL ELECTRONICS

LECTURE 2: ANALOG/DIGITAL INTERFACE

1

SIGNALS

DIGITAL TO ANALOG CONVERTERS (DACS)

DACs take an n-bit digital signal, and output a single analog voltage. Calculate a weighted sum of the input bits Two common types of DAC:

R/2nR R/2R Both based on voltage-summation circuits

R/2nR DAC
Inverting summation circuit, but with weighted input resistances Therefore Vout = -(V1 + V2/2 + V3/4)

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R/2nR DAC
Connect digital input with MSB -> V1 Each bit has half the impact on Vout as the previous bit
Can be expanded to any number of bits

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R/2R DAC
Disadvantage of R/2nR DAC: Resistor values must all be exact, even one wrong resistance will impact the output R/2R uses less resistors, only two different resistances.

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ANALOG TO DIGITAL CONVERSION (ADC)

More complicated than DAC. More varied architectures: Flash Ramp Dual Slope Approximation Basic principle: Sampling Similar to Decimal-to-Binary conversion Series of divisions to find quotient and remainder Use a reference voltage V REF

ADC GENERAL PRINCIPLES

What fraction of VREF is Vin? Resolution: Voltage gap between output code Range: Highest recordable input (VREF)

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ADC GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Sample rate: The rate at which the the input voltage is converted to a single digital output. Nyquist Theorum: If the highest frequency in an analogue input is B Hz, then a sample rate of 2B samples/sec will complete determine it Sample size: The number of bits in the output. Determines the maximum resolution/range.

FLASH ADC
Series of 2n 1 comparators compare the input voltage to reference voltages Priority encoder converts the comparator outputs to n-bit output

FLASH ADC

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FLASH ADC
Advantages Fast Flexible (by changing the resistors and VREF we can easily change resolution, range, even linearity) Disadvantages Expensive, hardware intensive Does not scale well (8-bits require 255 comparators, 32bits require over 4,000,000,000)

RAMP ADC
More complicated than Flash A digital counter counts up from zero

A Digital-to-Analog converter converts the counter output to analog voltage Comparator compares DAC output to input voltage.
When the two are equal, the output of the counter is read as the digital output.

RAMP ADC

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RAMP ADC
Advantages Less hardware than Flash Disadvantages

Low sample rate, not very responsive Inconsistent sample rate Inaccurate if input is varying

SLOPE ADC
Similar to ramp, but instead of using a digital counter and DAC, simply use an analogue ramping circuit Integrating circuit provides a sawtooth waveform Advantages: Less hardware than ramp Disadvantages Slow Even less accurate than ramp

SLOPE ADC

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DUAL SLOPE ADC

Similar to Slope, but with two sawtooth waveform generators, one increasing, one decreasing Composite output is triangular

DUAL SLOPE ADC

DUAL SLOPE ADC

Advantages: Less hardware than Flash Faster and more accurate than Ramp/Slope Disadvantages Slower than Flash

SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION ADC

Similar to Ramp/Slope ADC, but instead of counting linearly, the counter circuit changes its output starting from the MSB The comparator compares this output with the analog signal, and feeds back to the counter circuit to change the next least significant bit accordingly. Similar to trial-and-fit decimal to binary conversion

SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION ADC

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SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION ADC

Advantages: Much faster than Ramp/Slope, since the counter output converges to the correct value quickly