DAC Specification

&
ADC Specification
DAC Specification
 DAC Specification
• Resolution

• Linearity

• Accuracy

• Monotonicity

• Settling time

• Stability

• Offset Voltage

• Differential Non Linearity Error

• Integral Non Linearity Error

• Temperature Sensitivity
 Resolution
•• It  is smallest change in the analog output voltage of DAC. The resolution
is equal to the value of LSB and some time called as the step size.

• For a single bit changes in LSB assures output to change by smallest

voltage.

Where ‘n’ is the number of bits in binary input. Resolution in terms of

voltage
 Example
•  
• 10 bit DAC Resolution
 Linearity
• It tells about the linear characteristics of DAC

• Equal increment in input binary should produce equal increment of

output voltage to have a linear characteristics.

• It is a measure of accuracy and tells how close the output is compared

with ideal transfer characteristics.

• Linearity is also affected by offset and gain error.

• Ideal DAC has linearity characteristics represented by a straight line.

• The deviation of characteristics from this straight line is known as

linearity error.
Linearity
 Accuracy
• Accuracy tells about the ability of a DAC to produce accurate output

voltage for every binary input combination.

• Accuracy declines due to components used in DAC.

• Components are prone to characteristics mismatch, ageing, noises,

temperature drift etc.

• There were two types of accuracy

– Absolute Accuracy

– Relative Accuracy
• Absolute Accuracy

It is the maximum deviation between ideal and

practical DAC output.

• Relative Accuracy

It is the maximum deviation between ideal and

practical DAC output, after gain and offset error are
removed from characterstics
 Monotonicity
•• A  DAC is said to be monotonicity, if the analog voltage output increases
for an increase in digital binary input.

• That is the output increases and not decrease for the increment in binary

input.

• Non monotonicity characteristics may lead to oscillations in some

applications and missing codes in successive approximation ADCs.

• For a monotonic DAC, the error must be less than LSB at each output

voltage level.
 Settling Time
•• It  is defined as the time required for DAC output to settle within
LSB range of its final value for a given digital binary input.

• It depends on switching time of logic circuits due to internal

parasitic capacitance and inductances.

• The settling time ranges from 100ns to 10µs depending on word

length (number of binary bits) and type of technique used for

conversion.
 Stability

• Stability of DAC indicates the performance changes due

to temperature, ageing and power supply variations.

• DAC must produce stable output in all conditions based

on parameters such as offset, gain, linearity error,

monotonicity etc., specified over full temperature and

power supply ranges.

 Offset Voltage
• When all the binary input bits are Zeros, no output is produced from a ideal

DAC.

• However, practically a small output voltage exists at output, called as offset

voltage.

• This error is nullified by moving the DAC characteristics up or down, so that

characteristics line starts from origin. Doing this so, increases gain error.

• The offset voltage is adjusted by selecting a proper scaling factor ‘k’ of DAC.
 Differentia Non Linearity Error

• When analog output voltage appears exactly at

1LSB or one binary code, then DNL error is zero.

• It is the difference between ideal and actual

(practical) output voltage for Successive DAC

input code. DNL ≥1 LSB assures Monotonocity.

 Integral Non Linearity Error

• IBL error is also known as relative accuracy.

• It is the maximum deviation between ideal and

practical DAC output after gain and offset

error are removed.

 Temperature Sensitivity
•• As  components used in DAC circuit are sensitive to temperature

variations, DAC is defined with a parameter called as temperature

sensitivity.

• For a particular digital input, the output voltage changes due to changes in

temperature from time to time.

• DAC must be less sensitive to variations in temperature.

• The output voltage sensitivity ranges from to (ppm-parts per million) for

practical DACs.
ADC Specification
 DAC Specification
• Resolution

• Linearity and Linearity Error

• Accuracy

• Conversion time

• Quantization Error

• Input voltage range

• Analog Error

• Differential Non Linearity Error

• Integral Non Linearity Error

• Dither
 Resolution
•• The
  minimum change in input analog signal which is accepted
for conversion is given by resolution.

• It is decided by the number of outputs bits of ADC and it is

given by

• The minimum change in input voltage for 1 LSB change in

output is given by the product of full scale input voltage and

resolution.
 Linearity and Linearity Error
• It is linear characteristics of ADC.

• Equal increment in input analog signal should produce equal

increment in output binary word to have a linear characteristics.

• Linearity is the measure of accuracy and tells how close the output

is compared with ideal transfer characteristics.

• Linearity error is the difference between transitions for a

minimum step of input voltage and specified in fraction of 1 LSB.

 Accuracy

• The ability of the ADC to produce accurate

binary combination at output for all the step

input voltages is known as accuracy.

 Conversion Time

• The time taken by an ADC to convert the

given input analog voltage to its respective

binary output is called as conversion time.

 Quantization Error
• The error occurring during quantization or approximation of a range of analog

voltage taken as a single binary combination at output is known as quantization

error.

• Example: If 0 V at input represents 000 as binary output and if 1V at input

represents 001 as binary output, then the input of 0.7V will represent only 001 as

output.

• During DAC process, this 001 will be only restored as 1V and not as 0.7V.

Therefore, the quantization error is 1V -0.7V =0.3V.

• Quantization can be reduced to increase the number of bits.

 Input Voltage Range

• The range of analog input voltage that is

accepted by ADC without causing a overflow

in digital word at output side.

 Analog Error

• Analog error in ADC occurs due to change in

dc switching point of comparator, resistors, the

reference voltage source variations, ripples in

input and reference voltage and component

noise.
 Differential Non-linearity Error(DNL)
• The analog input voltage levels that produces any two successive binary output

codes should differ only by 1 LSB. Otherwise it may result in DNL error.

• DNL error is zero, because for every 1V change in input causes output to evenly

increase exactly by 1LSB

 Integral Non-linearity Error(DNL)

• The maximum deviation of the code center line

with respect to ideal straight line after nulling

the offset and gain error is called as INL error.

 Dither
• This is small noise like random noise added with input

before conversions starts.

• The effect is to cause the state of LSB to randomly oscillate

between 0 and 1 in the presence of low input signal levels.

• It can extend the effective range of input signal that an A/D

convert.
 . . .
o u
k Y
a n
T h