Lowest-power ADCs enable small, efficient medical imaging apps

Lowest-power ADCs enable small, efficient medical imaging apps

Eight-channel devices cut power consumption by 30%

Enabling smaller and more energy-efficient medical imaging, wireless communications, military guidance, automatic test equipment, and video equipment, the 12-bit ADS5281, 12-bit ADS5282, and 10-bit ADS5287 A/D converters are claimed to consume 30% less power than competing solutions. At the highest sampling rate (65 Msamples/s), the ADS5281 family consumes as little as 77 mW per channel. With dynamic scaling, at 30-Msamples/s, the per-channel power consumption is as low as 48 mW per channel.

The ADS5281 family interfaces with the company’s octal variable gain amplifier, the VCA8500, which features 0.8-nV/√Hz input noise at only 63 mW per channel. Together, the ADC and octal amplifier offer a complete medical signal chain with better noise performance and a combined power of less than 130 mW per channel at 50 Msamples/s, less than any competing solution.

Housed in 64-pin QFN and 80-pin TQFP packages, the ADS5281 family also includes a low-frequency noise suppression mode, which eliminates the 1/f (flicker) noise, improving SNR by up to 4.2 dB over a 1-MHz band in baseband and time-domain applications. And with programmable gain from 0 to 12 dB, full-scale outputs can be provided for input signals as low as 0.5 Vp-p. (Ea/100: ADS5281, $60; ADS5282, $68.60; ADS5287, $40; VCA8500, $40—samples available now.)

Texas Instruments , Dallas , TX
Product Information Center 800-477-8924
http://www.ti.com