A/D and D/A converters

D/A converters transform a digital signal to an equivalent analog signal, and A/D converters
transform an analog signal to an equivalent digital signal.
resolution
Resolution of a converter determines the degree of accuracy in conversion. It is equal to 1/2n.

To interface an A/D converter with the microprocessor, what does the microprocessor do?

The microprocessor should:

 Send a pulse to the start pin
 Wait until the end of the conversation
 Read the digital signal at the input port

The categories found in DAC.

• Current output
• Voltage output
• Multiplying type
R/2R ladder resistive network as DAC

 The switches in the circuit of figure above can be transistors which connects the
resistance either to ground or Vref.
 The resistors are connected in such a way that for any number of inputs, the total
current is in binary proportion.
 The operational amplifier converts the current to a voltage signal V0, which can be
calculated from the following equation.
 The circuit of figure shown above can be modified as 8-bitDAC, by increasing the
number of R/2R ladder. For an 8-bit DAC the output voltage is given by

The basic components of a DAC are resistive network with appropriate values, switches, a
reference source and a current to voltage converter as shown in figure below.
  The time required for converting the digital signal to analog signal is called conversion
time. It depends on the response time of the switching transistors and the output
amplifier.
 The Digital-to-Analog converters compatible to microprocessors are available with or
without internal latch and I to V converting amplifier.
 The AD558 of Analog Devices is an example of 8-bit DAC with an internal latch and I to V
converting amplifiers. The output of AD558 is an analog voltage signal.
 The AD558 can be directly interfaced to 8085 microprocessor bus and it requires only
two control signals: Chip Select (CS) and Chip Enable (CE).

Successive Approximation Technique

 The successive approximation analog-to-digital converter circuit typically consists of

four chief sub circuits:

 A sample and hold circuit to acquire the input voltage (Vin).

 An analog voltage comparator that compares Vin to the output of the internal DAC
and outputs the result of the comparison to the successive approximation
register (SAR).

 A successive approximation register subcircuit designed to supply an

approximate digital code of Vin to the internal DAC.
  An internal reference DAC that, for comparison with VREF, supplies the
comparator with an analog voltage equal to the digital code output of the SAR in.

Where,
DAC = digital-to-analog converter
EOC = end of conversion
SAR = successive approximation register
S/H = sample and hold circuit
Vin = input voltage
Vref = reference voltage

 The successive approximation register is initialized so that the most significant bit
(MSB) is equal to a digital 1.

 This code is fed into the DAC, which then supplies the analog equivalent of this digital
code (Vref/2) into the comparator circuit for comparison with the sampled input
voltage.
  If this analog voltage exceeds Vin the comparator causes the SAR to reset this bit;
otherwise, the bit is left a 1.

 Then the next bit is set to 1 and the same test is done, continuing this binary search
until every bit in the SAR has been tested.

 The resulting code is the digital approximation of the sampled input voltage and is
finally output by the SAR at the end of the conversion (EOC).

The main features of ADC are,

 8-bit resolution
 100μs conversion time
 8-channel multiplexer with latched control logic
 No need for external zero or full scale adjustment
 Low power consumption – 15mw
 Latched tristate output