Analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to-analog (D/A) converters are needed in all digital signal processing (DSP) applications and act as the interface between the analog and digital signal. As DSP continues to gain ground over analog signal processing, the importance of these converters increases correspondingly. The high-speed and high-resolution A/D converters are required in numerous applications, such as wireless communications, asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), and very high-speed DSL (VDSL) systems.
Sampling rate and precision or bit resolution greatly controls the performance of the data converters. In general case, we deal with a trade-off between these criteria. Different types of converter architectures offer system designers a wide range of choice in speed and resolution for optimal use in their applications. Among the choices in A/D architectures are flash, pipeline, successive-approximation register (SAR), and sigma-delta converters. D/A architectures include resistor-string converters, current-mode converters, and sigma-delta converters. Among these, sigma-delta converters are widely used in high-resolution applications.
In addition, the test of the data converters is becoming even more important issue in mixed signal applications. The test of A/D and D/A converters can be carried out by using a DSP unit. In each case, some practical DSP solutions for the state-of-the-art-applications are given by using Texas Instruments (TI) data converters and DSP products.
