ADC Drivers & Filters: Single Ended Buffer

Figure 1 shows a recommended single ended buffered drive circuit using the LT1818 in unity gain mode. The 47pF capacitor from AIN to ground and 50Ω source resistor limits the input bandwidth to 68MHz. The 47pF capacitor also acts as a charge reservoir for the input sample-and-hold and isolates the LT1818 from sampling glitch kick-back. The 50Ω source resistor is used to help stabilize the settling response of the drive amplifier. When choosing values of source resistance and shunt capacitance, the drive amplifier data sheet should be consulted and followed for optimum settling response. If lower input bandwidths are desired, care should be taken to optimize the settling response of the driver amplifier with higher values of shunt capacitance or series resistance. High quality capacitors and resistors should be used in the RC filter since these components can add distortion. NP0/C0G and silver mica type dielectric capacitors have excellent linearity. Carbon surface mount resistors can generate distortion from self heating and from damage that may occur during soldering. Metal film surface mount resistors are much less susceptible to both problems. When high amplitude unwanted signals are close in frequency to the desired signal frequency, a multiple pole filter is required. High external source resistance, combined with external shunt capacitance at Pin 4 and 13pF of input capacitance on the LTC2314-14 in sample mode, will significantly reduce the internal 130MHz input bandwidth and may increase the required acquisition time beyond the minimum acquisition time (t_ACQ-MIN) of 40ns.

Author

Guy Hoover

Guy Hoover is an engineer with over 30 years of experience at Linear Technology as a technician, an IC design engineer and an applications engineer.

He began his career at LTC as a technician, learning from Bob Dobkin, Bob Widlar, Carl Nelson and Tom Redfern working on a variety of products including op amps, comparators, switching regulators and ADCs. He also spent considerable time during this period writing test programs for the characterization of these parts.

The next part of his career at LTC was spent learning PSpice and designing SAR ADCs. Products designed by Guy include the LTC1197 family of 10-bit ADCs and the LTC1864 family of 12-bit and 16-bit ADCs.

Guy is currently an applications engineer in the Mixed Signal group specializing in SAR ADC applications support. This includes designing, writing Verilog code and test procedures for SAR ADC demo boards, helping customers optimize their products that contain LTC SAR ADCs, and writing hopefully useful applications articles that pass on to customers what he has learned about using these parts.

Guy graduated from DeVry Institute of Technology (Now DeVry University) with a BS in electronics engineering technology.