ADC (Analog-to-Digital)

Electronics Engineering

How It Works

An Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) transforms continuous physical analog voltages into discrete quantized binary digital words through the sequential processes of sampling, quantization, and digital encoding. An N-bit converter divides the full-scale input voltage range into 2^N discrete quantization bins of width Δ = V_ref / 2^N. The inherent discrepancy between the continuous input and the discrete output level introduces quantization noise, limiting the theoretical dynamic range to SQNR ≈ 6.02·N + 1.76 dB.

Governing Equation
Δ = V_{ref} / 2^N   |   SQNR ≈ 6.02 · N + 1.76 dB   |   e_q(t) = V_{in}(t) - V_{quant}(t)