Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other electrically charged particles . It is a subfield of physics and electrical engineering which uses active devices such as transistors , diodes , and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog signals to digital signals.
84-413: In electronics , an analog-to-digital converter ( ADC , A/D , or A-to-D ) is a system that converts an analog signal , such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera , into a digital signal . An ADC may also provide an isolated measurement such as an electronic device that converts an analog input voltage or current to a digital number representing the magnitude of
168-427: A battery is determined by the chemistry of that cell (see Galvanic cell § Cell voltage ). Cells can be combined in series for multiples of that voltage, or additional circuitry added to adjust the voltage to a different level. Mechanical generators can usually be constructed to any voltage in a range of feasibility. Nominal voltages of familiar sources: In 1800, as the result of a professional disagreement over
252-491: A capacitor to store the analog voltage at the input, and using an electronic switch or gate to disconnect the capacitor from the input. Many ADC integrated circuits include the sample and hold subsystem internally. An ADC works by sampling the value of the input at discrete intervals in time. Provided that the input is sampled above the Nyquist rate , defined as twice the highest frequency of interest, then all frequencies in
336-437: A digital encoder logic circuit that generates a binary number on the output lines for each voltage range. ADCs of this type have a large die size and high power dissipation. They are often used for video , wideband communications , or other fast signals in optical and magnetic storage . The circuit consists of a resistive divider network, a set of op-amp comparators and a priority encoder. A small amount of hysteresis
420-432: A mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. The MOSFET was invented at Bell Labs between 1955 and 1960. It was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. Its advantages include high scalability , affordability, low power consumption, and high density . It revolutionized the electronics industry , becoming
504-436: A saw-tooth signal that ramps up or down then quickly returns to zero. When the ramp starts, a timer starts counting. When the ramp voltage matches the input, a comparator fires, and the timer's value is recorded. Timed ramp converters can be implemented economically, however, the ramp time may be sensitive to temperature because the circuit generating the ramp is often a simple analog integrator . A more accurate converter uses
588-470: A 500 Hz sine wave. 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 that is applied to analog signals with higher frequency content. In applications where protection against aliasing is essential, oversampling may be used to greatly reduce or even eliminate it. Although aliasing in most systems
672-491: A clocked counter driving a DAC. A special advantage of the ramp-compare system is that converting a second signal just requires another comparator and another register to store the timer value. To reduce sensitivity to input changes during conversion, a sample and hold can charge a capacitor with the instantaneous input voltage and the converter can time the time required to discharge with a constant current . An integrating ADC (also dual-slope or multi-slope ADC) applies
756-523: A constant current source . The time required to discharge the capacitor is proportional to the amplitude of the input voltage. While the capacitor is discharging, pulses from a high-frequency oscillator clock are counted by a register. The number of clock pulses recorded in the register is also proportional to the input voltage. If the analog value to measure is represented by a resistance or capacitance, then by including that element in an RC circuit (with other resistances or capacitances fixed) and measuring
840-432: A faithful reproduction of the original signal is only possible if the sampling rate is higher than twice the highest frequency of the signal. Since a practical ADC cannot make an instantaneous conversion, the input value must necessarily be held constant during the time that the converter performs a conversion (called the conversion time ). An input circuit called a sample and hold performs this task—in most cases by using
924-446: A flow of digital values. It is therefore required to define the rate at which new digital values are sampled from the analog signal. The rate of new values is called the sampling rate or sampling frequency of the converter. A continuously varying bandlimited signal can be sampled and then the original signal can be reproduced from the discrete-time values by a reconstruction filter . The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem implies that
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#17327727219471008-422: A known voltage charging and discharging curve that can be used to solve for an unknown analog value. The Wilkinson ADC was designed by Denys Wilkinson in 1950. The Wilkinson ADC is based on the comparison of an input voltage with that produced by a charging capacitor. The capacitor is allowed to charge until a comparator determines it matches the input voltage. Then, the capacitor is discharged linearly by using
1092-436: A longer time to measure than smaller one. And the accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the microcontroller clock and the amount of time available to measure the value, which potentially might even change during measurement or be affected by external parasitics . A direct-conversion or flash ADC has a bank of comparators sampling the input signal in parallel, each firing for a specific voltage range. The comparator bank feeds
1176-566: A mix of the two types. Analog circuits are becoming less common, as many of their functions are being digitized. Analog circuits use a continuous range of voltage or current for signal processing, as opposed to the discrete levels used in digital circuits. Analog circuits were common throughout an electronic device in the early years in devices such as radio receivers and transmitters. Analog electronic computers were valuable for solving problems with continuous variables until digital processing advanced. As semiconductor technology developed, many of
1260-540: A physical space, although in more recent years the trend has been towards electronics lab simulation software , such as CircuitLogix , Multisim , and PSpice . Today's electronics engineers have the ability to design circuits using premanufactured building blocks such as power supplies , semiconductors (i.e. semiconductor devices, such as transistors), and integrated circuits. Electronic design automation software programs include schematic capture programs and printed circuit board design programs. Popular names in
1344-409: A pulse of a particular amplitude is always converted to the same digital value. The problem lies in that the ranges of analog values for the digitized values are not all of the same widths, and the differential linearity decreases proportionally with the divergence from the average width. The sliding scale principle uses an averaging effect to overcome this phenomenon. A random, but known analog voltage
1428-441: A ratio because the cgs unit of voltage is inconveniently small and one volt in this definition is approximately the emf of a Daniell cell , the standard source of voltage in the telegraph systems of the day. At that time, the volt was defined as the potential difference [i.e., what is nowadays called the "voltage (difference)"] across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. The "international volt"
1512-454: A sampler. It cannot improve the linearity, and thus accuracy does not necessarily improve. Quantization distortion in an audio signal of very low level with respect to the bit depth of the ADC is correlated with the signal and sounds distorted and unpleasant. With dithering, the distortion is transformed into noise. The undistorted signal may be recovered accurately by averaging over time. Dithering
1596-519: A sampling rate greater than twice the bandwidth of the signal, then per the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem , near-perfect reconstruction is possible. The presence of quantization error limits the SNDR of even an ideal ADC. However, if the SNDR of the ADC exceeds that of the input signal, then the effects of quantization error may be neglected, resulting in an essentially perfect digital representation of
1680-533: A series-connected array of several thousand or tens of thousands of junctions , excited by microwave signals between 10 and 80 GHz (depending on the array design). Empirically, several experiments have shown that the method is independent of device design, material, measurement setup, etc., and no correction terms are required in a practical implementation. In the water-flow analogy , sometimes used to explain electric circuits by comparing them with water-filled pipes, voltage (difference in electric potential)
1764-454: Is a very small amount of random noise (e.g. white noise ), which is added to the input before conversion. Its effect is to randomize the state of the LSB based on the signal. Rather than the signal simply getting cut off altogether at low levels, it extends the effective range of signals that the ADC can convert, at the expense of a slight increase in noise. Dither can only increase the resolution of
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#17327727219471848-533: Is added to the sampled input voltage. It is then converted to digital form, and the equivalent digital amount is subtracted, thus restoring it to its original value. The advantage is that the conversion has taken place at a random point. The statistical distribution of the final levels is decided by a weighted average over a region of the range of the ADC. This in turn desensitizes it to the width of any specific level. These are several common ways of implementing an electronic ADC. Resistor-capacitor (RC) circuits have
1932-414: Is also equivalent to electronvolts per elementary charge : The volt is named after Alessandro Volta . As with every SI unit named for a person, its symbol starts with an upper case letter (V), but when written in full, it follows the rules for capitalisation of a common noun ; i.e., volt becomes capitalised at the beginning of a sentence and in titles but is otherwise in lower case. Historically
2016-471: Is also used in integrating systems such as electricity meters . Since the values are added together, the dithering produces results that are more exact than the LSB of the analog-to-digital converter. Dither is often applied when quantizing photographic images to a fewer number of bits per pixel—the image becomes noisier but to the eye looks far more realistic than the quantized image, which otherwise becomes banded . This analogous process may help to visualize
2100-428: Is built into the comparator to resolve any problems at voltage boundaries. At each node of the resistive divider, a comparison voltage is available. The purpose of the circuit is to compare the analog input voltage with each of the node voltages. The circuit has the advantage of high speed as the conversion takes place simultaneously rather than sequentially. Typical conversion time is 100 ns or less. Conversion time
2184-548: Is defined as unwanted disturbances superposed on a useful signal that tend to obscure its information content. Noise is not the same as signal distortion caused by a circuit. Noise is associated with all electronic circuits. Noise may be electromagnetically or thermally generated, which can be decreased by lowering the operating temperature of the circuit. Other types of noise, such as shot noise cannot be removed as they are due to limitations in physical properties. Many different methods of connecting components have been used over
2268-606: Is likened to difference in water pressure , while current is proportional to the amount of water flowing. A resistor would be a reduced diameter somewhere in the piping or something akin to a radiator offering resistance to flow. The relationship between voltage and current is defined (in ohmic devices like resistors ) by Ohm's law . Ohm's Law is analogous to the Hagen–Poiseuille equation , as both are linear models relating flux and potential in their respective systems. The voltage produced by each electrochemical cell in
2352-427: Is limited only by the speed of the comparator and of the priority encoder. This type of ADC has the disadvantage that the number of comparators required almost doubles for each added bit. Also, the larger the value of n, the more complex is the priority encoder. A successive-approximation ADC uses a comparator and a binary search to successively narrow a range that contains the input voltage. At each successive step,
2436-578: Is the elementary charge and h is the Planck constant ), a "conventional" value K J-90 = 0.4835979 GHz/μV was used for the purpose of defining the volt. As a consequence of the 2019 revision of the SI , as of 2019 the Josephson constant has an exact value of K J = 483 597 .848 416 98 ... GHz/V , which replaced the conventional value K J-90 . This standard is typically realized using
2520-458: Is the ADC's resolution in bits and E FSR is the full-scale voltage range (also called 'span'). E FSR is given by where V RefHi and V RefLow are the upper and lower extremes, respectively, of the voltages that can be coded. Normally, the number of voltage intervals is given by where M is the ADC's resolution in bits. That is, one voltage interval is assigned in between two consecutive code levels. Example: In many cases,
2604-409: Is the number of ADC bits. Clock jitter is caused by phase noise . The resolution of ADCs with a digitization bandwidth between 1 MHz and 1 GHz is limited by jitter. For lower bandwidth conversions such as when sampling audio signals at 44.1 kHz, clock jitter has a less significant impact on performance. An analog signal is continuous in time and it is necessary to convert this to
Analog-to-digital converter - Misplaced Pages Continue
2688-435: Is the potential difference between two points that will impart one joule of energy per coulomb of charge that passes through it. It can be expressed in terms of SI base units ( m , kg , s , and A ) as It can also be expressed as amperes times ohms (current times resistance, Ohm's law ), webers per second (magnetic flux per time), watts per ampere (power per current), or joules per coulomb (energy per charge), which
2772-595: Is the voltage comparator which receives a continuous range of voltage but only outputs one of two levels as in a digital circuit. Similarly, an overdriven transistor amplifier can take on the characteristics of a controlled switch , having essentially two levels of output. Analog circuits are still widely used for signal amplification, such as in the entertainment industry, and conditioning signals from analog sensors, such as in industrial measurement and control. Digital circuits are electric circuits based on discrete voltage levels. Digital circuits use Boolean algebra and are
2856-448: Is therefore the process of defining and developing complex electronic devices to satisfy specified requirements of the user. Due to the complex nature of electronics theory, laboratory experimentation is an important part of the development of electronic devices. These experiments are used to test or verify the engineer's design and detect errors. Historically, electronics labs have consisted of electronics devices and equipment located in
2940-407: Is uniformly distributed between − 1 ⁄ 2 LSB and + 1 ⁄ 2 LSB, and the signal has a uniform distribution covering all quantization levels, the signal-to-quantization-noise ratio (SQNR) is given by where Q is the number of quantization bits. For example, for a 16-bit ADC, the quantization error is 96.3 dB below the maximum level. Quantization error is distributed from DC to
3024-403: Is unwanted, it can be exploited to provide simultaneous down-mixing of a band-limited high-frequency signal (see undersampling and frequency mixer ). The alias is effectively the lower heterodyne of the signal frequency and sampling frequency. For economy, signals are often sampled at the minimum rate required with the result that the quantization error introduced is white noise spread over
3108-624: The IBM 608 was the first IBM product to use transistor circuits without any vacuum tubes and is believed to be the first all-transistorized calculator to be manufactured for the commercial market. The 608 contained more than 3,000 germanium transistors. Thomas J. Watson Jr. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors in their design. From that time on transistors were almost exclusively used for computer logic circuits and peripheral devices. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on
3192-479: The Nyquist frequency . Consequently, if part of the ADC's bandwidth is not used, as is the case with oversampling , some of the quantization error will occur out-of-band , effectively improving the SQNR for the bandwidth in use. In an oversampled system, noise shaping can be used to further increase SQNR by forcing more quantization error out of band. In ADCs, performance can usually be improved using dither . This
3276-470: The bandlimited analog input signal. The resolution of the converter indicates the number of different, i.e. discrete, values it can produce over the allowed range of analog input values. Thus a particular resolution determines the magnitude of the quantization error and therefore determines the maximum possible signal-to-noise ratio for an ideal ADC without the use of oversampling . The input samples are usually stored electronically in binary form within
3360-463: The effective number of bits (ENOB) below that predicted by quantization error alone. The error is zero for DC, small at low frequencies, but significant with signals of high amplitude and high frequency. The effect of jitter on performance can be compared to quantization error: Δ t < 1 2 q π f 0 {\displaystyle \Delta t<{\frac {1}{2^{q}\pi f_{0}}}} , where q
3444-408: The signal-to-noise ratio performance of the ADC and thus reduce its effective resolution. When digitizing a sine wave x ( t ) = A sin ( 2 π f 0 t ) {\displaystyle x(t)=A\sin {(2\pi f_{0}t)}} , the use of a non-ideal sampling clock will result in some uncertainty in when samples are recorded. Provided that
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3528-496: The " conventional " volt, V 90 , defined in 1987 by the 18th General Conference on Weights and Measures and in use from 1990 to 2019, was implemented using the Josephson effect for exact frequency-to-voltage conversion, combined with the caesium frequency standard . Though the Josephson effect is still used to realize a volt, the constant used has changed slightly. For the Josephson constant , K J = 2 e / h (where e
3612-448: The 1960s, U.S. manufacturers were unable to compete with Japanese companies such as Sony and Hitachi who could produce high-quality goods at lower prices. By the 1980s, however, U.S. manufacturers became the world leaders in semiconductor development and assembly. However, during the 1990s and subsequently, the industry shifted overwhelmingly to East Asia (a process begun with the initial movement of microchip mass-production there in
3696-538: The 1970s), as plentiful, cheap labor, and increasing technological sophistication, became widely available there. Over three decades, the United States' global share of semiconductor manufacturing capacity fell, from 37% in 1990, to 12% in 2022. America's pre-eminent semiconductor manufacturer, Intel Corporation , fell far behind its subcontractor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in manufacturing technology. By that time, Taiwan had become
3780-420: The ADC, so the resolution is usually expressed as the audio bit depth . In consequence, the number of discrete values available is usually a power of two. For example, an ADC with a resolution of 8 bits can encode an analog input to one in 256 different levels (2 = 256). The values can represent the ranges from 0 to 255 (i.e. as unsigned integers) or from −128 to 127 (i.e. as signed integer), depending on
3864-722: The British Association for the Advancement of Science had defined the volt, ohm, and farad. In 1881, the International Electrical Congress, now the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), approved the volt as the unit for electromotive force. They made the volt equal to 10 cgs units of voltage, the cgs system at the time being the customary system of units in science. They chose such
3948-712: The EDA software world are NI Multisim, Cadence ( ORCAD ), EAGLE PCB and Schematic, Mentor (PADS PCB and LOGIC Schematic), Altium (Protel), LabCentre Electronics (Proteus), gEDA , KiCad and many others. Heat generated by electronic circuitry must be dissipated to prevent immediate failure and improve long term reliability. Heat dissipation is mostly achieved by passive conduction/convection. Means to achieve greater dissipation include heat sinks and fans for air cooling, and other forms of computer cooling such as water cooling . These techniques use convection , conduction , and radiation of heat energy . Electronic noise
4032-519: The actual sampling time uncertainty due to clock jitter is Δ t {\displaystyle \Delta t} , the error caused by this phenomenon can be estimated as E a p ≤ | x ′ ( t ) Δ t | ≤ 2 A π f 0 Δ t {\displaystyle E_{ap}\leq |x'(t)\Delta t|\leq 2A\pi f_{0}\Delta t} . This will result in additional recorded noise that will reduce
4116-409: The application. Resolution can also be defined electrically, and expressed in volts . The change in voltage required to guarantee a change in the output code level is called the least significant bit (LSB) voltage. The resolution Q of the ADC is equal to the LSB voltage. The voltage resolution of an ADC is equal to its overall voltage measurement range divided by the number of intervals: where M
4200-409: The basis of all digital computers and microprocessor devices. They range from simple logic gates to large integrated circuits, employing millions of such gates. Digital circuits use a binary system with two voltage levels labelled "0" and "1" to indicated logical status. Often logic "0" will be a lower voltage and referred to as "Low" while logic "1" is referred to as "High". However, some systems use
4284-459: The circuit, thus slowing the computer. The invention of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce solved this problem by making all the components and the chip out of the same block (monolith) of semiconductor material. The circuits could be made smaller, and the manufacturing process could be automated. This led to the idea of integrating all components on a single-crystal silicon wafer, which led to small-scale integration (SSI) in
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#17327727219474368-419: The conversion periodically, sampling the input, and limiting the allowable bandwidth of the input signal. The performance of an ADC is primarily characterized by its bandwidth and signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SNDR). The bandwidth of an ADC is characterized primarily by its sampling rate . The SNDR of an ADC is influenced by many factors, including the resolution , linearity and accuracy (how well
4452-415: The converter compares the input voltage to the output of an internal digital-to-analog converter (DAC) which initially represents the midpoint of the allowed input voltage range. At each step in this process, the approximation is stored in a successive approximation register (SAR) and the output of the digital-to-analog converter is updated for a comparison over a narrower range. A ramp-compare ADC produces
4536-432: The development of many aspects of modern society, such as telecommunications , entertainment, education, health care, industry, and security. The main driving force behind the advancement of electronics is the semiconductor industry , which in response to global demand continually produces ever-more sophisticated electronic devices and circuits. The semiconductor industry is one of the largest and most profitable sectors in
4620-874: The early 1960s, and then medium-scale integration (MSI) in the late 1960s, followed by VLSI . In 2008, billion-transistor processors became commercially available. An electronic component is any component in an electronic system either active or passive. Components are connected together, usually by being soldered to a printed circuit board (PCB), to create an electronic circuit with a particular function. Components may be packaged singly, or in more complex groups as integrated circuits . Passive electronic components are capacitors , inductors , resistors , whilst active components are such as semiconductor devices; transistors and thyristors , which control current flow at electron level. Electronic circuit functions can be divided into two function groups: analog and digital. A particular device may consist of circuitry that has either or
4704-417: The effect of dither on an analog audio signal that is converted to digital. An ADC has several sources of errors. Quantization error and (assuming the ADC is intended to be linear) non- linearity are intrinsic to any analog-to-digital conversion. These errors are measured in a unit called the least significant bit (LSB). In the above example of an eight-bit ADC, an error of one LSB is 1 ⁄ 256 of
4788-452: The electronic logic gates to generate binary states. Highly integrated devices: Electronic systems design deals with the multi-disciplinary design issues of complex electronic devices and systems, such as mobile phones and computers . The subject covers a broad spectrum, from the design and development of an electronic system ( new product development ) to assuring its proper function, service life and disposal . Electronic systems design
4872-435: The field of electronics and the electron age. Practical applications started with the invention of the diode by Ambrose Fleming and the triode by Lee De Forest in the early 1900s, which made the detection of small electrical voltages, such as radio signals from a radio antenna , practicable. Vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) were the first active electronic components which controlled current flow by influencing
4956-456: The flow of individual electrons , and enabled the construction of equipment that used current amplification and rectification to give us radio , television , radar , long-distance telephony and much more. The early growth of electronics was rapid, and by the 1920s, commercial radio broadcasting and telecommunications were becoming widespread and electronic amplifiers were being used in such diverse applications as long-distance telephony and
5040-562: The following ways: The electronics industry consists of various sectors. The central driving force behind the entire electronics industry is the semiconductor industry sector, which has annual sales of over $ 481 billion as of 2018. The largest industry sector is e-commerce , which generated over $ 29 trillion in 2017. The most widely manufactured electronic device is the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), with an estimated 13 sextillion MOSFETs having been manufactured between 1960 and 2018. In
5124-498: The full signal range, or about 0.4%. All ADCs suffer from nonlinearity errors caused by their physical imperfections, causing their output to deviate from a linear function (or some other function, in the case of a deliberately nonlinear ADC) of their input. These errors can sometimes be mitigated by calibration , or prevented by testing. Important parameters for linearity are integral nonlinearity and differential nonlinearity . These nonlinearities introduce distortion that can reduce
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#17327727219475208-489: The functions of analog circuits were taken over by digital circuits, and modern circuits that are entirely analog are less common; their functions being replaced by hybrid approach which, for instance, uses analog circuits at the front end of a device receiving an analog signal, and then use digital processing using microprocessor techniques thereafter. Sometimes it may be difficult to classify some circuits that have elements of both linear and non-linear operation. An example
5292-415: The galvanic response advocated by Luigi Galvani , Alessandro Volta developed the so-called voltaic pile , a forerunner of the battery , which produced a steady electric current . Volta had determined that the most effective pair of dissimilar metals to produce electricity was zinc and silver . In 1861, Latimer Clark and Sir Charles Bright coined the name "volt" for the unit of resistance. By 1873,
5376-462: The global economy, with annual revenues exceeding $ 481 billion in 2018. The electronics industry also encompasses other sectors that rely on electronic devices and systems, such as e-commerce, which generated over $ 29 trillion in online sales in 2017. The identification of the electron in 1897 by Sir Joseph John Thomson , along with the subsequent invention of the vacuum tube which could amplify and rectify small electrical signals , inaugurated
5460-494: The logarithm of the resolution, i.e. the number of bits. Flash ADCs are certainly the fastest type of the three; The conversion is basically performed in a single parallel step. There is a potential tradeoff between speed and precision. Flash ADCs have drifts and uncertainties associated with the comparator levels results in poor linearity. To a lesser extent, poor linearity can also be an issue for successive-approximation ADCs. Here, nonlinearity arises from accumulating errors from
5544-449: The measured run-down time period. The run-down time measurement is usually made in units of the converter's clock, so longer integration times allow for higher resolutions. Likewise, the speed of the converter can be improved by sacrificing resolution. Converters of this type (or variations on the concept) are used in most digital voltmeters for their linearity and flexibility. Electronics Electronic devices have hugely influenced
5628-399: The most widely used electronic device in the world. The MOSFET is the basic element in most modern electronic equipment. As the complexity of circuits grew, problems arose. One problem was the size of the circuit. A complex circuit like a computer was dependent on speed. If the components were large, the wires interconnecting them must be long. The electric signals took time to go through
5712-677: The music recording industry. The next big technological step took several decades to appear, when the first working point-contact transistor was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947. However, vacuum tubes played a leading role in the field of microwave and high power transmission as well as television receivers until the middle of the 1980s. Since then, solid-state devices have all but completely taken over. Vacuum tubes are still used in some specialist applications such as high power RF amplifiers , cathode-ray tubes , specialist audio equipment, guitar amplifiers and some microwave devices . In April 1955,
5796-410: The performance of the ADC can be greatly increased at little or no cost. Furthermore, as any aliased signals are also typically out of band, aliasing can often be eliminated using very low cost filters. The speed of an ADC varies by type. The Wilkinson ADC is limited by the clock rate which is processable by current digital circuits. For a successive-approximation ADC , the conversion time scales with
5880-411: The quantization levels match the true analog signal), aliasing and jitter . The SNDR of an ADC is often summarized in terms of its effective number of bits (ENOB), the number of bits of each measure it returns that are on average not noise . An ideal ADC has an ENOB equal to its resolution. ADCs are chosen to match the bandwidth and required SNDR of the signal to be digitized. If an ADC operates at
5964-540: The reverse definition ("0" is "High") or are current based. Quite often the logic designer may reverse these definitions from one circuit to the next as they see fit to facilitate their design. The definition of the levels as "0" or "1" is arbitrary. Ternary (with three states) logic has been studied, and some prototype computers made, but have not gained any significant practical acceptance. Universally, Computers and Digital signal processors are constructed with digital circuits using Transistors such as MOSFETs in
6048-410: The reverse function; it converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An ADC converts a continuous-time and continuous-amplitude analog signal to a discrete-time and discrete-amplitude digital signal . The conversion involves quantization of the input, so it necessarily introduces a small amount of quantization error . Furthermore, instead of continuously performing the conversion, an ADC does
6132-504: The signal can be reconstructed. If frequencies above half the Nyquist rate are sampled, they are incorrectly detected as lower frequencies, a process referred to as aliasing. Aliasing occurs because instantaneously sampling a function at two or fewer times per cycle results in missed cycles, and therefore the appearance of an incorrectly lower frequency. For example, a 2 kHz sine wave being sampled at 1.5 kHz would be reconstructed as
6216-404: The subtraction processes. Wilkinson ADCs have the best linearity of the three. The sliding scale or randomizing method can be employed to greatly improve the linearity of any type of ADC, but especially flash and successive approximation types. For any ADC the mapping from input voltage to digital output value is not exactly a floor or ceiling function as it should be. Under normal conditions,
6300-415: The time it takes to charge (and/or discharge) its capacitor from 1 ⁄ 3 V supply to 2 ⁄ 3 V supply . By sending this pulse into a microcontroller with an accurate clock, the duration of the pulse can be measured and converted using the capacitor charging equation to produce the value of the unknown resistance or capacitance. Larger resistances and capacitances will take
6384-550: The time to charge the capacitance from a known starting voltage to another known ending voltage through the resistance from a known voltage supply, the value of the unknown resistance or capacitance can be determined using the capacitor charging equation: V capacitor ( t ) = V supply ( 1 − e − t R C ) {\displaystyle V_{\text{capacitor}}(t)=V_{\text{supply}}\left(1-e^{-{\frac {t}{RC}}}\right)} and solving for
6468-506: The unit of electric potential , electric potential difference ( voltage ), and electromotive force in the International System of Units (SI) . One volt is defined as the electric potential between two points of a conducting wire when an electric current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power between those points. It can be expressed in terms of SI base units ( m , kg , s , and A ) as Equivalently, it
6552-411: The unknown input voltage to the input of an integrator and allows the voltage to ramp for a fixed time period (the run-up period). Then a known reference voltage of opposite polarity is applied to the integrator and is allowed to ramp until the integrator output returns to zero (the run-down period). The input voltage is computed as a function of the reference voltage, the constant run-up time period, and
6636-471: The unknown resistance or capacitance using those starting and ending datapoints. This is similar but contrasts to the Wilkinson ADC which measures an unknown voltage with a known resistance and capacitance, by instead measuring an unknown resistance or capacitance with a known voltage. For example, the positive (and/or negative) pulse width from a 555 Timer IC in monostable or astable mode represents
6720-418: The useful resolution of a converter is limited by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and other errors in the overall system expressed as an ENOB. Quantization error is introduced by the quantization inherent in an ideal ADC. It is a rounding error between the analog input voltage to the ADC and the output digitized value. The error is nonlinear and signal-dependent. In an ideal ADC, where the quantization error
6804-563: The voltage or current. Typically the digital output is a two's complement binary number that is proportional to the input, but there are other possibilities. There are several ADC architectures . Due to the complexity and the need for precisely matched components , all but the most specialized ADCs are implemented as integrated circuits (ICs). These typically take the form of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal integrated circuit chips that integrate both analog and digital circuits . A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) performs
6888-433: The whole passband of the converter. If a signal is sampled at a rate much higher than the Nyquist rate and then digitally filtered to limit it to the signal bandwidth produces the following advantages: Oversampling is typically used in audio frequency ADCs where the required sampling rate (typically 44.1 or 48 kHz) is very low compared to the clock speed of typical transistor circuits (>1 MHz). In this case,
6972-573: The world's leading source of advanced semiconductors —followed by South Korea , the United States , Japan , Singapore , and China . Important semiconductor industry facilities (which often are subsidiaries of a leading producer based elsewhere) also exist in Europe (notably the Netherlands ), Southeast Asia, South America, and Israel . Volt The volt (symbol: V ) is
7056-762: The years. For instance, early electronics often used point to point wiring with components attached to wooden breadboards to construct circuits. Cordwood construction and wire wrap were other methods used. Most modern day electronics now use printed circuit boards made of materials such as FR4 , or the cheaper (and less hard-wearing) Synthetic Resin Bonded Paper ( SRBP , also known as Paxoline/Paxolin (trade marks) and FR2) – characterised by its brown colour. Health and environmental concerns associated with electronics assembly have gained increased attention in recent years, especially for products destined to go to European markets. Electrical components are generally mounted in
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