Analog-to-digital converter
system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal; device converting a physical quantity to a digital number
In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as from fingers touching a touchscreen, sound entering a microphone, or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal.
An ADC may also provide an isolated measurement, such as an electronic device that converts an analog input voltage or current to a digital number representing the magnitude of the voltage or current. Typically, the digital output is a two's complement binary number that is proportional to the input, but there are other possibilities.
There are several ADC architectures. Due to the complexity and the need for precisely matched components, all but the most specialized ADCs are implemented as integrated circuits (ICs). These typically take the form of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal integrated circuit chips that integrate both analog and digital circuits.
A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) performs the reverse function; it converts a digital signal into an analog signal.
Characteristics
An ADC converts a continuous-time and continuous-amplitude analog signal to a discrete-time and discrete-amplitude digital signal. The conversion involves quantization of the input, so it necessarily introduces a small amount of quantization error. Furthermore, instead of continuously performing the conversion, an ADC does the conversion periodically, sampling the input, and limiting the allowable bandwidth of the input signal.
“Analog-to-digital converter” enters the record as system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal; device converting a physical quantity to a digital number. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Analog-to-digital, converter and system can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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