High-Precision

Applications

Group 9
Panilag, Allen C.
Tabucal, Dindo P.
Objetive:
To be able to understand and identify the
requirements of High Precision Application.
To expand your learnings and critical thinking
on how High Precision works.
To be able to have an ability to make invention
that can make people to go beyond expectation.
CONTENTS :
 Input Offset Voltage
 Input Resistance
 Frequency Characteristics
 Temperature Effects in Resistors
 Voltage References
• Temperature Effects in General
• Noise and Grounding
• Printed Circuit Board Layout
• Statistical Tolerancing
• Supply-Based References
 High-Precision Applications
High precision is not an easy term to define, but for our
purposes, we will say that it is any application that requires
more than 10 bits of accuracy. A requirement for high
precision usually stems from one of two places: a need to
measure very small values, or a need to measure a wide
dynamic range. High precision typically translates into
more resolution: a 12- or 16-bit ADC instead of an 8- or
10-bit part.
However, added resolution brings new
problems. A 10-bit ADC with a 5 V range
has a resolution of 4.88 mv per ADC step. A
12-bit ADC has a resolution of 1.2 mv per
step. Just to pick one example, a signal
fluctuation of 3 mv will cause at most a plus
or minus 1 count variation in a 10-bit system
— which amounts to 2 or 3 counts at 12 bits
and 10 counts at 16 bits.
Input Offset Voltage
In an ideal opamp, the output will be 0 any time both inputs are
at the same voltage. In a real opamp, the internal transistors are
not precisely matched and may not be at exactly the same
temperature. This produces an input offset voltage. The input
offset voltage of an opamp is defined as the voltage that must be
applied across the inputs to produce 0 volts at the output. To see
the effect of input offset voltage on an opamp, we will look at the
noninverting amplifier again. The equation for the output, when
taking offset voltage into account is Vo =AV(V+- V_ +Vx)
Input Resistance
Opamp designs usually assume that the current flowing into the opamp
inputs is zero because the input impedance is infinite. A real opamp has
some current flowing into the inputs because the impedance is finite. The
LM318 data sheet specifies an input resistance from 0:5 M (minimum) to 3
M (typical). Just for simplicity, we will assume that the source driving the
noninverting input has a low enough impedance that the current is
negligible. This will allow us to examine the inverting input only. Figure 9.2
shows the effect of input resistance, Ri, from the inverting to noninverting
inputs. If we assume that the input resistance is equal to the typical value, 3
M, then the opamp output equation looks like this:
Frequency Characteristics
Figure 9.3 shows an approximate, typical, gain-versus-frequency plot
for the LM318. The open-loop gain falls off with increasing
frequency, approaching 0 dB (gain of 1) at around 10 MHz. As
shown before, using actual gain versus ideal gain for the LM318
resulted in a noninverting amplifier with an ideal gain of 6 having an
actual gain of 5.99964 (7.199568/1.2). Using the chart in Figure 9.3
to estimate the open-loop gain, we find that it falls from 100,000 at 0
Hz to 3000 at 1 kHz, and to 500 at 10 kHz. If we plug this into the
output equation for a 1.2 V input signal, we get the following results:
Temperature Effects in Resistors

The value of a resistor changes with temperature.

The relationship between resistance and temperature
is defined as the temperature coefficient (TC) and is
specified in parts per million per degree centigrade
(ppm/C). Typical temperature coefficients for film
resistors range from 25 ppm/C to 100 ppm/C.
 The formula for calculating the
temperature coefficient is as follows:
Voltage References

All ADC systems require some kind of voltage reference. All

voltage references have some nominal value, but they also
have a tolerance that specifies how much they can vary from
this value. Because references are semiconductor devices,
they are susceptible to temperature effects as well.

Figure 9.4 shows what happens in an ADC system using an

LM336 with nominal, maximum, and minimum values. At an
input voltage of 0, the output code will be 0. As the measured
voltage rises, the code read from the ADC diverges from the
nominal value by a constant percentage.
 Temperature Effects in General

As was already mentioned, the opamp offset
voltage varies with temperature, resistor values
vary with temperature, and other components vary
with temperature, including voltage references for
ADCs and opamp biasing. All of these errors
accumulate in one direction or another, affecting
the overall result.
 If the components for a particular high-precision
subsystem can be collected in one place, such as one
corner of a circuit board, it may be possible to
compensate for them in software. You can do this by
placing a temperature sensor near the high-precision
part of the circuit. The system can then be calibrated at
various temperatures, with the software maintaining a
table of actual ADC results for a known input at each
temperature.
 Noise and Grounding
 his example used an ADC, but the same principles apply to
DACs, sampleand-hold circuits, and opamps. Most high-
precision circuits will need a separate ground plane for
analog signals. Sometimes multiple analog ground planes,
for different analog sections, are required.
 Of course, any noise or offsets that appear on the inputs will
be scaled by the same amount, but any noise added to the
signal after the scaling (such as ground noise on the ADC)
will not.
 Printed Circuit Board Layout

The layout of the printed circuit board

(PCB) is important in any analog system.
Poor board layout can result in ground
loops and noise. As resolution goes up,
these add more to the error.
 Statistical Tolerancing
 When determining the worst-case range of values in an
analog circuit, you can use the specified extreme limits of
the parts to guarantee a good design. If you are using 1%
resistors, assume that the actual resistor values your
manufacturing line receives will span the full range and that
a worst-case stackup will occur eventually. This results in
the safest design, but it may result in unnecessary
complication. For instance, calculating the worst-case
tolerance stackup may result in a design that requires
manual adjustment.
 Supply-Based References
 This book has used as examples supply-based references
such as an internal microprocessor ADC that has the þ5 V
supply as a reference voltage. For consistency, this chapter
has done the same thing in many cases. However, in a real-
world high-precision application, it is rare to find a logic
supply used as a reference. In most systems, the logic supply
is noisy and is not regulated well enough to serve as a
reference for ADCs or opamps. Again, it was used here so
that the examples would be consistent with those found
elsewhere in the book.
SUMMARY :
 Opamp open-loop gain
 Opamp input offset voltage
 Opamp input resistance
 Opamp frequency/gain roll-off
• Temperature effects in resistors
• Temperature effects in voltage
references
• Grounding
• PCB layout
• The possibility of isolating the high-
precision part of the system
Acknowledgment:
I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all
those who provided me the possibility to complete this
report. A special gratitude to Mr. Marcial, Pepito our
professor who invested his full effort in guiding the class
in achieving the goal whose contribution in stimulating
suggestions and encouragement, and also to our
classmates who always give their best to appreciate our
presentation that gives us more confident to explained
well .