12-, 14- & 16-bit SAR ADCs are 'industry's smallest'

10th September 2014

Nat Bowers

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Enabling system designers to reduce the size of their industrial monitoring and control applications, Texas Instruments has introduced SAR ADCs. The company has claimed that the ADS7042 is the industry’s smallest and lowest-power 12-bit SAR ADC and the ADS8354 family includes the industry’s smallest 14- and 16-bit, simultaneous-sampling SAR ADCs.

The 1MSPS ADS7042 uses only 690μW of power at full speed and scales consumption down with sampling rate. For example, at 1kSPS, the ADS7042 consumes less than 1μW of power, making it suited for use in remote system monitoring and energy harvesting applications. It is also suitable for motor control, metering and portable medical equipment, as well as space-constrained consumer applications, such as hard disk drives, computer peripherals, wearable fitness devices and smartphones.

The 1MSPS throughput is achieved with only a 16MHz clock, which TI claims is 67% lower than competing devices, enabling a seamless connection to most low-power processors. TI has also claimed that the ADS7042 uses 52% less power and that its tiny 1.5x1.5mm package is 44% smaller than competitive devices.

The 2-channel ADS8354 family offers no latency, data rates from 600kSPS to 2MSPS per channel and dual, independently controllable internal voltage references. The ADCs are suited for the industrial market, targeting applications such as motor control, DC load control, optical networking, power quality, industrial automation and PLCs. The family saves board space with two independently programmable voltage references enabling separate full-scale ranges per channel.

Combined with a size of just 3x3mm, this reduces overall board space and the need for external signal conditioning circuitry. Single-ended or differential input options allow designers to more easily customise the analogue signal chain to meet their industrial system needs. The ADS8354 devices enable fast, no latency motor control with a simple, configurable 18 or 32MHz clock.

TI also provides a range of support tools for the ADS7042 and ADS8354 family, including hardware demonstration kits, reference designs and simulation models, to speed time to market.

The ADS7042 is available now in a 1.5x1.5mm QFN package priced at $2.10 each in 1,000 unit quantities. The ADS8354 family is also available now in 3x3mm QFN and 5x6.4mm TSSOP packages with pricing from $3.50 to $9.00 each in 1,000 unit quantities.