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MAX1301-Slide8

A key ADC parameter is resolution, which is the smallest step of change that can be measured. The smaller the measured step, the higher the resolution. The example here shows that an ADC with higher resolution is more representative of the original signal compared to a lower resolution ADC. ADCs offered in the market have resolutions ranging from 8-bits all the way up to 24-bits. A single step is calculated by taking the full scale input range divided by the 2(# of bits). For example, a 16-bit ADC with a reference voltage of 5V means the signal’s smallest step is 5V/216 or 76.3µV. This is also known as the least significant bit or LSB. Besides voltage, the units for LSB can be expressed in ppm FS, % FS, and dBFS where FS stands for full scale.

PTM Published on: 2014-08-25