CONTENTS

PG NO.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 4
ABSTRACT 5
LIST OF FIGURES/ ABREVIATIONS 6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 7

CHAPTER 2: FLASH TYPE ADC 9

CHAPTER 3: HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION 11

CHAPTER 4: CIRCUIT TEST 12

4.1: PHASE 1 12
4.2: PHASE 2 13

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND CONCLUSION 14

CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY 15

REFERENCES 16

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The success and final outcome of this project required a lot of guidance and assistance from
many people and we are extremely fortunate to have got this all along the completion of our
project work. Whatever we have done is only due to such guidance and assistance and we
would not forget to thank them.

I respect and thank our Electrical Engineering Department, for giving us an opportunity to do
the project work in Multibit ADC and providing us all support and guidance which made us
complete the project on time . We are extremely grateful to our mentor Dr. S.C. Vora for
providing such a nice support and guidance though he had busy schedule managing the
college affairs.

We owe our profound gratitude to our project guide Dr. Vora, who took keen interest on our
project work and guided us all along, till the completion of our project work by providing all
the necessary information.

We are thankful to and fortunate enough to get constant encouragement, support and
guidance from all Teaching and Laboratory Staff of Department of Electrical Engineering
which helped us in successfully completing our project work.

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 ABSTRACT

An analog-to-digital converter, or ADC as it is more commonly called, is a device that

converts analog signals into digital signals. Analog information is transmitted by modulating
a continuous transmission signal by amplifying a signal's strength or varying its frequency to
add or take away data. Digital information describes any system based on discontinuous data
or events. Computers, which handle data in digital form, require analog-to-digital converters
to turn signals from analog to digital before it can be read. One example is a modem which
turns signals from digital to analog before transmitting those signals over communication
lines such as telephone lines that carry only analog signals. The signals are turned back into
digital form (demodulated) at the receiving end so that the computer can process the data in
its digital format.

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 List of figures and Abbreviations

Figures Pg No.

Analog signal 7

Digital signal 8

Flash type ADC 9

Hardware model 11

Result table 14

Abbreviations

ADC- Analog to digital converter

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 1) INTRODUCTION

An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is a device that converts an analog signal to a digital

signal.
An analog signal is a continuously valued signal, such as temperature or speed, with infinite
possible values in between. This are directly measurable quantities in terms of some other
quantity. For example: Thermometer mercury height rises as temperature rises, Car
Speedometer Needle moves farther right as you accelerate.

A digital signal is discretely valued signal, such as integers, encoded in binary. Digital signals
have only two states. For digital computers, we refer to binary states, 0 and 1. 1 can be on,
0 can be off.

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 Digital signal

Analog-to-digital conversion is an electronic process in which a continuously variable

(analog) signal is changed, without altering its essential content, into a multi-level
(digital)signal.

The input to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) consists of a voltage that varies among a
theoretically infinite number of values. Examples are sine waves, the waveforms representing
human speech, and the signals from a conventional television camera. The output of the
ADC, in contrast, has defined levels or states. The number of states is almost always a power
of two that is, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. The simplest digital signals have only two states, and are
called binary. All whole numbers can be represented in binary form as strings of ones and
zeros.

Digital signals propagate more efficiently than analog signals, largely because digital
impulses, which are well-defined and orderly, are easier for electronic circuits to distinguish
from noise, which is chaotic. This is the chief advantage of digital modes in communications.
Computers talk and think in terms of binary digital data; while a microprocessor can
analyze analog data, it must be converted into digital form for the computer to make sense of
it.

A typical telephone modem makes use of an ADC to convert the incoming audio from a
twisted-pair line into signals the computer can understand. In a digital signal processing
system, an ADC is required if the signal input is analog.

For the conversion of analog to digital the devices used are known as analog to digital
converter (ADC). There are various types of ADCs used today in world. Some of them are
listed below:

Flash type A/D converter

Counter type A/D converter

Tracking type A/D converter

Dual Slope type A/D converter

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 Successive Approximation type A/D converter

We have implemented the Flash Type A/D converter on hardware model as our mini project
1, we have discussed it in great detail in further sections.

2) FLASH TYPE A/D CONVERTER

The flash type ADC is the fastest type of A/D converter. This type of converter utilizes the parallel
differential comparators that compare reference voltages with the input voltage. A flash type ADC
consists of a series of comparators, each one comparing the input signal to a unique reference voltage.
The comparator outputs connect to the inputs of a priority encoder which produces a binary output. A
n-bit flash type ADC requires 2n-1 comparators and 2n resistors. The circuit diagram of a 3 bit Flash
type ADC is shown below.

As we can see from the above figure , a 3 bit ADC requires 2 3 = 8 resistors and 23-1 = 7 comparators.
A reference voltage Eref is connected to a voltage divider that divides it into seven equal increment
levels. Each level is compared to the analog input by a voltage comparator. For any given analog
input, one comparator and all those below it will have a HIGH output. All comparator outputs are
connected to a priority encoder which produces a digital output corresponding to the input having
highest priority which in this case is the one that represents the largest input. The digital output
represents the voltage that is closest in value to the analog input.

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The voltage applied to the inverting terminal of the uppermost comparator in above fig is 7R/(7R+R)
* Eref = 7* Eref/8 . voltage applied to the inverting terminal of second comparator is 6* E ref/8 and so on.
The increment between voltages is Eref/8.

The flash converter uses no clock signal, because there is no timing or sequencing period. The
conversion takes place continuously. The only delays in the conversion are in the comparators and the
priority encoders.

Advantages of Flash type ADC:

Simplest in terms of operational theory

Most efficient in terms of speed, very fast

Limited only in terms of comparator and gate propagation delays

Disadvantages of Flash type ADC:

Lower resolution

Expensive

For each additional output bit, the number of comparators is doubled i.e. for 8 bits,
256 comparators needed

Applications of Flash type ADC :

Microphones take your voice varying pressure waves in the air and convert them
into varying electrical signals

Strain Gages determines the amount of strain (change in dimensions) when a stress
is applied

Thermocouple temperature measuring device converts thermal energy to electric

energy

Voltmeters

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 Digital Multimeters

3) Hardware Implementation

After reading and understanding the theoretical concept of a Flash type ADC,
hardware implementation was done using breadboard to test for the output results.

In hardware implementation , we have used LEDs to detect the output of comparators

instead of a priority encoder. As there are 7 comparators being used, we have used 7
LEDs each connected to the output of a comparator.

The comparator used is IC741.

The reference voltage for the circuit as well as +Vcc supply for IC741 have been
given 15 V using Dual mode regulated power supply.

The input signal for the circuit has been given by using Dual mode regulated power
supply. The input given was 15 V.

-Vee has been grounded.

Resistors used are of 1K ohm.

The order of LED is D0,D1,D2,D3,D4,D5,D6 from right to left in picture.

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4) CIRCUIT TEST
All the connections were on breadboard as per the circuit diagram.
+Vcc of 15 V was given using Dual Regulated Power Supply.
Reference voltage (Eref) of 15 V was given using the same Dual Regulated Power
Supply.
An input voltage was incremented from 0 V to 15 V using another Dual Regulated
Power Supply.
Output was observed.

4.1) PHASE 1
After performing the hardware connections, when the circuit was tested, the output
which it yielded was not desired.

Without the +Vcc and Reference voltage supply, all the LEDs turn on just by giving
the input voltage of 15 V.

When all the supplies were given properly, still the circuit yielded the same result.

The voltage drop across each resistor was tested using Multimeter, there was a
proportionate decrement across each resistor.

Invidual ICs were tested to ensure that all the IC are functioning properly.

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 Different grounding connections were tried, but still all the LEDs would glow.

After performing test on individual comparator and resistor circuit, desired output was
yielded.

But when the same test was done for Flash Circuit as a whole, we didnt get the
desired output.

We concluded that the problem we were facing was due to improper grounding.

4.2) Phase 2

As mentioned in phase 1, the desired output was not yielded due to improper grounding. Thus
not finding any solution for several days, we approached our project guide Dr. S.C. Vora. Dr.
Vora examined our circuit connections very carefully and immediately provided the solution
for grounding .

We then implemented that grounding for the entire circuit and the desired output which is the
turning on of LEDs in sequence as per the input voltage applied i.e. as voltage in incremented
gradually LEDs turn on one by one in appropriate order.

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5) RESULTS

The LEDs did turn on in appropriate sequence ( D0 LED turned on first and so on ) as the
input voltage was incremented.

LED TURN ON VOLTAGE

D0 0.9 V
D1 1.3 V
D2 1.9 V
D3 2.3 V
D4 3.5 V
D5 7.8 V
D6 12.5 V

CONCLUSION
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From the experiment conducted and results obtained, we conclude that as per the theory of
Flash Type ADC LEDs do turn on with increase in input voltage. But the increment in turning
on voltage is not proportionate as it should be. The reason behind this error may be faulty
breadboard or there may be some fault in ICs used. The results are not entirely accurate
because of some component malfunction in hardware.

6) SUMMARY
A flash ADC is a type of analog-to-digital converter that uses a linear voltage
ladder with a comparator at each "rung" of the ladder to compare the input voltage to
successive reference voltages. These reference ladders are constructed of
many resistors. A flash converter requires 2N-1 comparators and 2N
resistors for an n-bit conversion. As the analog input voltage
exceeds the reference voltage at each comparator, the comparator
outputs will sequentially saturate to a high state.

In this project we used LEDs to detect the output of the comparators, in future we will
use a priority encoder i.e. output of comparators will be given to a priority encoder
which will convert it to a 3 bit digital output.

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 REFERENCES
FUNDAMENTALS OF DIGITAL CIRCUITS ANAND
KUMAR
WIKIPEDIA

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