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Direct Type ADCs
An Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) converts an analog signal into a digital signal. The digital signal
is represented with a binary code, which is a combination of bits 0 and 1.
The block diagram of an ADC is shown in the following figure −
Observe that in the figure shown above, an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) consists of a single
analog input and many binary outputs. In general, the number of binary outputs of ADC will be a power
of two.
There are two types of ADCs: Direct type ADCs and Indirect type ADC. This chapter discusses about
the Direct type ADCs in detail.
If the ADC performs the analog to digital conversion directly by utilizing the internally generated
equivalent digital (binary) code for comparing with the analog input, then it is called as Direct type
ADC.
The following are the examples of Direct type ADCs −
Counter type ADC
Successive Approximation ADC
Flash type ADC
This section discusses about these Direct type ADCs in detail.
Counter type ADC
A counter type ADC produces a digital output, which is approximately equal to the analog input by
using counter operation internally.
The block diagram of a counter type ADC is shown in the following figure −
The counter type ADC mainly consists of 5 blocks: Clock signal generator, Counter, DAC, Comparator
and Control logic.
The working of a counter type ADC is as follows −
The control logic resets the counter and enables the clock signal generator in order to send
the clock pulses to the counter, when it received the start commanding signal.
The counter gets incremented by one for every clock pulse and its value will be in binary
(digital) format. This output of the counter is applied as an input of DAC.
DAC converts the received binary (digital) input, which is the output of counter, into an analog
output. Comparator compares this analog value,Va with the external analog input value Vi .
The output of comparator will be 1 as long as is greater than. The operations mentioned in
above two steps will be continued as long as the control logic receives 1 from the output of
comparator.
The output of comparator will be 0 when Vi is less than or equal to Va . So, the control logic
receives 0 from the output of comparator. Then, the control logic disables the clock signal
generator so that it doesnt send any clock pulse to the counter.
At this instant, the output of the counter will be displayed as the digital output. It is almost
equivalent to the corresponding external analog input value Vi .
Successive Approximation ADC
A successive approximation type ADC produces a digital output, which is approximately equal to the
analog input by using successive approximation technique internally.
The block diagram of a successive approximation ADC is shown in the following figure
The successive approximation ADC mainly consists of 5 blocks− Clock signal generator, Successive
Approximation Register (SAR), DAC, comparator and Control logic.
The working of a successive approximation ADC is as follows −
The control logic resets all the bits of SAR and enables the clock signal generator in order to
send the clock pulses to SAR, when it received the start commanding signal.
The binary (digital) data present in SAR will be updated for every clock pulse based on the
output of comparator. The output of SAR is applied as an input of DAC.
DAC converts the received digital input, which is the output of SAR, into an analog output. The
comparator compares this analog value Va with the external analog input value Vi .
The output of a comparator will be 1 as long as Vi is greater than Va . Similarly, the output of
comparator will be 0, when Vi is less than or equal to Va .
The operations mentioned in above steps will be continued until the digital output is a valid
one.
The digital output will be a valid one, when it is almost equivalent to the corresponding external
analog input value Vi .
Flash type ADC
A flash type ADC produces an equivalent digital output for a corresponding analog input in no time.
Hence, flash type ADC is the fastest ADC.
The circuit diagram of a 3-bit flash type ADC is shown in the following figure −
The 3-bit flash type ADC consists of a voltage divider network, 7 comparators and a priority encoder.
The working of a 3-bit flash type ADC is as follows.
The voltage divider networkcontains 8 equal resistors. A reference voltage VR is applied
across that entire network with respect to the ground. The voltage drop across each resistor
VR
from bottom to top with respect to ground will be the integer multiples (from 1 to 8) of .
8
The external input voltage Vi is applied to the non-inverting terminal of all comparators. The
voltage drop across each resistor from bottom to top with respect to ground is applied to the
inverting terminal of comparators from bottom to top.
At a time, all the comparators compare the external input voltage with the voltage drops
present at the respective other input terminal. That means, the comparison operations take
place by each comparator parallelly.
The output of the comparator will be 1 as long as Vi is greater than the voltage drop present
at the respective other input terminal. Similarly, the output of comparator will be 0, when, Vi is
less than or equal to the voltage drop present at the respective other input terminal.
All the outputs of comparators are connected as the inputs of priority encoder.This priority
encoder produces a binary code (digital output), which is corresponding to the high priority
input that has 1.
Therefore, the output of priority encoder is nothing but the binary equivalent (digital output) of
external analog input voltage, Vi .
The flash type ADC is used in the applications where the conversion speed of analog input into digital
data should be very high.
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