Analog Circuit Design

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A standards lab grade 20-bit DAC with 0.1ppm/°C driftThe dedicated art of digitizing one part per million

Jim Williams, J. Brubaker, P. Copley, J. Guerrero and F. Oprescu

Introduction

Significant progress in high precision, instrumentation grade D-to-A conversion has recently occurred. Ten years ago 12-bit D-to-A converters (DACs) were considered premium devices. Today, 16-bit DACs are available and increasingly common in system design. These are true precision devices with less than 1LSB linearity error and 1ppm/°C drift.¹ Nonetheless, there are DAC applications that require even higher performance. Automatic test equipment, instruments, calibration apparatus, laser trimmers, medical electronics and other applications often require DAC accuracy ...