Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TA 3 - Group – 12
Group Members:
56 – Rishi Agrawal
57 – Ritik Singh
58 – Sagar Chaudhari
59 – Sahil Telani
60 – Sangeet Khule
Course Co-ordinator:
Dr. P.S. Deole
What is A to D convertor
Working of A to D convertor
Types of ADC’s
Successive Approximation ADC
Delta Sigma ADC
Dual Slope ADC
Flash ADC
Pipelined ADC
Applications of ADC’s
Testing
Calibration and Need for Calibration
References
•A data converter which allows digital circuits to interface with the real world by encoding an analogue signal into a binary
code.
•It allows micro-processor controlled circuits, Arduinos, Raspberry Pi, and other such digital logic circuits to communicate
with the real world.
•In the real world, analogue signals have continuously changing values which come from various sources and sensors which
can measure sound, light, temperature or movement, and many digital systems interact with their environment by
measuring the analogue signals from such transducers.
•Digital circuits on the other hand work with binary signal which have only two discrete states, a logic “1” (HIGH) or a logic
“0” (LOW).
•So it is necessary to have an electronic circuit which can convert between the two different domains of continuously
changing analogue signals and discrete digital signals, and this is where Analogue-to-Digital Converters (A/D) come in.
• Basically an analogue to digital converter takes a snapshot of an analogue voltage at one instant in time and
produces a digital output code which represents this analogue voltage.
• The number of binary digits, or bits used to represent this analogue voltage value depends on the resolution
of an A/D converter.
• ADCs follow a sequence when converting analog signals to digital. They first sample the signal, then quantify
it to determine the resolution of the signal, and finally set binary values and send it to the system to read the
digital signal.
• Two important aspects of the ADC are its sampling rate and resolution.
• Microcontrollers can’t read values unless it’s digital data. This is because microcontrollers can only see
“levels” of the voltage, which depends on the resolution of the ADC and the system voltage.
Fig 1: Working of ADC’s
There are basically five major
types of ADCs in use today:
Successive Approximation (SAR)
ADC
Delta-sigma (ΔΣ) ADC
Pipelined ADC
Flash ADC
The “bread and butter” ADC of the DAQ world is the SAR ADC (Successive Approximation Register). It
offers an excellent balance of speed and resolution and handles a wide variety of signals with
excellent fidelity.
Applications Applications for SAR ADCs include DAQ systems, from low-end multiplexed ADC
systems to higher speed single ADC per channel systems, industrial control and
measurement, CMOS imaging.
A newer ADC design is the delta-sigma ADC (or delta converter), which takes advantage of DSP technology in order to
improve amplitude axis resolution and reduce the high-frequency quantization noise inherent in SAR designs. The complex
and powerful design of delta-sigma ADCs makes them ideal for dynamic applications that require as much amplitude axis
resolution as possible. This is why they are commonly found in audio, sound and vibration, and a wide range of high-end
data acquisition applications and in precision industrial measurement applications.
Advantages High-resolution output (24-bits)
Applications Applications for Delta-sigma ADCs include data acquisition, especially noise and vibration,
industrial balancing, torsional and rotational vibration, power quality monitoring, precision
industrial measurements, audio and voiceband, communications.
Fig 3: Delta Sigma ADC Block DIagram
The voltage is input and allowed to “run up” for a period of time. Then a known voltage of the opposite polarity is applied
and allowed to run back down to zero. When it reaches zero, the system calculates what the input voltage had been by
comparing the run-up time with the run-down time, and by knowing what the reference had been. The run-up and run-
down times are the two slopes for which this technique has been named.
Disadvantages • Slow conversion time due to the ramp-up and ramp-down iteration
• For most applications, the ADC needs no calibration when using single ended conversion. The
typical accuracy is 1-2 LSB, and it is often neither necessary nor practical to calibrate for better
accuracies.
• However, when using differential conversion the situation changes, especially with high gain
settings. Minor process variations are scaled with the gain stage and give large parameter
differences from part to part. The uncompensated error is typically above 20 LSB. These variations
must be characterized for every device and compensated for in software.
• At first sight 20 LSB seems to be a large value, but using simple calibration algorithms, accuracies of
typically 1-2 LSB can be achieved.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog-to-digital_converter
• https://www.analog.com/media/en/training-seminars/design-handbooks/Analog-Digital-
Conversion-1977/Chapter2-4.pdf
• http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/atmel-2559-characterization-and-
calibration-of-the-adc-on-an-avr_applicationnote_avr120.pdf
• Measurement System, Application and Design, E.O. Doebelin, Mc Graw Hill Education.