Analog to Digital & Digital to Analog

Conversion Technique
Analogue to digital conversion enables any signal to be described by a
set of equally spaced amplitude values, provided that the spacing on
the time scale (the sampling interval) is small enough.  It is the
process of transforming the signal from the analog domain to the
digital domain. This process could take place at baseband, as is the
case of direct conversion receivers, or at intermediate frequency (IF)
or low IF depending on the requirements and consequently on the
receiver architecture pursued by the designers.
The First Conversion
The actual analog-to-digital conversion is a two-step process. First we
need to take a sample of the input voltage signal; only then we can
disconnect the input and perform the actual conversion of the sampled
voltage into a numerical value. The two distinct phases are controlled
by two separate control bits in
the AD1CON1 register: SAMP and DONE. The timing of the two
phases is important to provide the necessary accuracy of the
measurement.
During the sampling phase the external signal is connected to an
internal capacitor that needs to be charged up to the input voltage.
Enough time must be provided for the capacitor to track the input
voltage and this time is mainly proportional to the impedance of the
input signal source as well as the internal capacitor value. In general,
the longer the sampling time, the better is the result compatibility with
the input signal frequency
PARALLEL A/D CONVERTER
Parallel A/D conversion (sometimes called flash conversion) is the
fastest technique available and the simplest to understand. However,
its practicality is limited to small numbers of bits, since it requires 2 N –
1 comparator circuits in order to produce an N-bit digital output. For
example, producing a 3-bit digital output (8 states) requires 23 – 1, or
7, comparator circuits plus a significant amount of
logic circuitry. Figure 8.10 shows the complete schematic diagram of a
3-bit parallel A/D converter circuit (including decoder logic).

The operation of the circuit is very straightforward. The voltage divider

provides a stable reference for one input of each of the seven voltage
comparators.
Voltage Range Comparator States Digital Result
0 ≤ vIN < 1.25 Volts 0000000 000
1.25 Volts ≤ vIN < 2.5 Volts 0000001 001
2.5 Volts ≤ vIN < 3.75 Volts 0000011 010
3.75 Volts ≤ vIN < 5 Volts 0000111 011
5 Volts ≤ vIN < 6.25 Volts 0001111 100
6.25 Volts ≤ vIN < 7.5 Volts 0011111 101
7.5 Volts ≤ vIN < 8.75 Volts 0111111 110
8.75 Volts ≤ vIN < 10 Volts 1111111 111
Digital to analog conversion
Digital to analog conversions can be performed using resistor
networks and the conversion to an analog signal is usually in the order
of nanoseconds. Since the digital information is a step approximation
of the input signal, the resulting output from a D to A converter reflects
this step nature of the signal. Here it will be assumed that the digital
input is a conventional positive base 2 integer. If the digital input is in
some other numerical format, it can be converted to base 2 as
described elsewhere in this text. If the output is required to be bipolar,
that is, the numerical input may have either positive or negative
polarity to produce either positive or negative output voltages or
currents, then this may be most easily handled by two separate
converters, one for each of the output polarities and only one of which
is allowed to be active at any one time. Each resistor is switched into
circuit as its own associated bit is set equal to 1. When the input bit
associated with any resistor is equal to 0, that resistor is not switched
into the circuit but instead is replaced by a short circuit of zero
resistance. To produce an analogue output voltage, all that is then
necessary is to drive a certain standard but constant current through
the variable resistor network, and the voltage dropped across the
entire resistor network is then the analogue output voltage required.
 using
an analogue ‘voltage follower’ circuit which may include a small
amount of extra gain for further scaling purposes, so that the circuit is
more tolerant of whatever circuitry is connected to the output of the
D/A converter. Here the network produces an analogue output
current Iout equal to the sum of binary-weighted contributions, and an
operational amplifier buffer circuit is used to give an analogue voltage
output.
The accuracy or linearity of the converter is defined as the difference
between the actual output and the expected output value, measured
with any specified digital input value.  Significant resistor is being
switched in and out. For example, suppose an 8-bit D/A converter is to
be designed using a resistor chain with a smallest resistor value of
10Ω. The other resistors in the chain will take values of 20Ω, 40Ω,
80Ω, 160Ω, 320Ω, 640Ω, and 1280Ω. Further, suppose that the 10Ω
resistor is manufactured to a tolerance of ±10% or ±1Ω. To match this
precision, all the other resistors must also be manufactured to a
precision of ±1Ω as otherwise there is little point in making the 10Ω
resistor this precise.  Below shown schematic diagram is DAC using
weighted resistors.
Given digital voltage is b3 b2 b1 b0 where each bit is a binary value (0 or 1).
The output voltage produced at output side is

V0=R0/R (b3+b2/2+b1/4+b0/8) Vref

If b2=1, and b3=b1=b0=0, then the output voltage is V0=3R (i2/4) =Vref/4 and
the circuit is simplified as below

If b1=1 and b2=b3=b0=0, then the circuit shown in the figure below it is a
simplified form of the above DAC circuit. The output voltage is V0=3R (i1/8)=
Vref/8

Finally, the circuit is shown in below corresponding to the case where b0=1
and b2=b3=b1=0. The output voltage is V0=3R (i0/16) = Vref/16