Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are one of the most commonly used blocks in embedded systems. Applications of ADCs include current sensing, motor control, temperature sensing and a myriad of others. As a consequence, understanding the basic specifications of an ADC and selecting an appropriate device for the given application is a must for reliable operation and cost-effective design.
This series of articles will begin with the basics of ADCs, and then discuss different characteristics of an ADC that are important to design, including the impact of various irregularities, types of ADCs available on the market, advantages and disadvantages of each type, and how their selection varies from application to application. This first part of this article series discusses what exactly an ADC is and how an ideal ADC works. In the subsequent articles, we will go to more practical aspects and parameters of an ADC.
To read Part 1 of the series, which is presented as a pdf document, click here.
About the authors
Sachin Gupta is a Senior Applications Engineer in the Global Applications team at Cypress Semiconductor Corp. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org .
Akshay Phatak is an Applications Engineer with Cypress Semiconductor. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Telecommunications form College of Engineering, Pune (India). He likes to work on mixed-signal embedded systems. He can be reached at email@example.com.