Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)

From the name itself it is clear that it is a converter which converts the analog (continuously
variable) signal to digital signal. This is really an electronic integrated circuit which directly
converts the continuous form of signal to discrete form. It can be expressed as A/D or A-to-D or
A-D or ADC. The input (analog) to this system can have any value in a range and are directly
measured. But for output (digital) of an N-bit A/D converter, it should have only 2N discrete
values. This A/D converter is a linkage between the analog (linear) world of transducers and
discreet world of processing the signal and handling the data. The digital to analog converter
(DAC) carry out the inverse function of the ADC.

ADC Process. There are mainly two steps involves in the process of conversion. They are
Sampling and Holding then Quantizing and Encoding

Sampling and Holding : In the process of Sample and hold (S/H), the continuous signal will gets
sampled and freeze (hold) the value at a steady level for a particular least period of time. It is
done to remove variations in input signal which can alter the conversion process and thereby
increases the accuracy. The minimum sampling rate has to be two times the maximum data
frequency of the input signal.

Quantizing and Encoding :For understanding quantizing, we can first go through the term
Resolution used in ADC. It is the smallest variation in analog signal that will result in a variation
in the digital output. This actually represents the quantization error.

V → Reference voltage range

2N → Number of states
N → Number of bits in digital output

Quantizing: It is the process in which the reference signal is partitioned into several discrete
quanta and then the input signal is matched with the correct quantum.

Improvement of Accuracy in ADC/Two important methods are used for improving the accuracy
in ADC. They are by increasing the resolution and by increasing the sampling rate.

Not every pin on a microcontroller has the ability to do analog to digital conversions. On the
Arduino board, these pins have an ‘A’ in front of their label (A0 through A5) to indicate these
pins can read analog voltages. ADCs can vary greatly between microcontroller. The ADC on the
Arduino is a 10-bit ADC meaning it has the ability to detect 1,024 (2^10) discrete analog levels.
Some microcontrollers have 8-bit ADCs (2^8 = 256 discrete levels) and some have 16-bit ADCs
(2^16 = 65,536 discrete levels).

Characteristics of Analogue to Digital Converters is about resolution, accursy, sampling time and
aliasing. The resolution of the converter indicates the number of discrete values it can produce. It
is usually expressed in bits. Accuracy depends on the error in the conversion. If the ADC is not
broken, this error has two components: quantization error and (assuming the ADC is intended to
be linear) non-linearity.

Sampling time can explain that the analogue signal is continuous in time and it is necessary to
convert this to a flow of digital values. It is therefore required to define the rate at which new
digital values are sampled from the analogue signal. The rate of new values is called the
sampling rate or sampling frequency of the converter. And To avoid aliasing, the input to an
ADC must be low-pass filtered to remove frequencies above half the sampling rate. This filter is
called an anti-aliasing filter, and is essential for a practical ADC system.

Types of Analog to Digital Converter

Successive Approximation ADC: The SAR ADC a most modern ADC IC and much faster than
dual slope and flash ADCs since it uses a digital logic that converges the analog input voltage to
the closest value. This circuit consists of a comparator, output latches, successive approximation
register (SAR) and D/A converter. At the start, SAR is reset and as the LOW to HIGH transition
is introduced, the MSB of the SAR is set. Then this output is given to the D/A converter that
produces an analog equivalent of the MSB, further it is compared with the analog input Vin.If
comparator output is LOW, then MSB will be cleared by the SAR, otherwise the MSB will be
set to the next position.This process continues till all the bits are tried and after Q0, the SAR
makes the parallel output lines to contain valid data.

Dual Slope ADC: In this type of ADC converter comparison voltage is generated by using an
integrator circuit which is formed by a resistor, capacitor and operational amplifier combination.
By the set value of Vref, this integrator generates a sawtooth waveform on its output from zero to
the value Vref. When the integrator waveform is started correspondingly counter starts counting
from 0 to 2^n-1 where n is the number of bits of ADC.

Flash ADC: This ADC converter IC is also called as parallel ADC, which is a most widely used
efficient ADC in terms of its speed. This flash analog to digital converter circuit consists of a
series of comparators where each one compares the input signal with a unique reference
voltage.At each comparator, the output will be high state when the analog input voltage exceeds
the reference voltage. This output is further given to priority encoder for generating binary code
based on higher order input activity by ignoring other active inputs. This flash type is a high-cost
and high-speed device.
Pipeline ADC: It is same as that of two step Flash ADC.
Delta-Sigma ADC: It has high resolution but slow due to over sampling.
Other: Staircase ramp, Voltage-to-Frequency, Switched capacitor, tracking, Charge balancing,
and resolver.

Application of ADC

 Used together with the transducer.

 Used in computer to convert the analog signal to digital signal.
 Used in cell phones.
 Used in microcontrollers.
 Used in digital signal processing.
 Used in digital storage oscilloscopes.
 Used in scientific instruments.
 Used in music reproduction technology etc.