Dynamic error tester of digital/analog converters

摘要

Dynamic error tester for digital-to-analog converters (1) uses a comparison of sawtooth voltage generated by the tested digital-to-analogue converter (1) with a DC voltage generated by the reference digital-to-analog converter (3) and measured by the digital multimeter (4). This comparison is carried out by the voltage comparator (2). The pulse width at the output of the voltage comparator (2) is evaluated as the ratio of the number of pulses which release the gate (5) controlled by the output of the voltage comparator (2) to the pulse counter (6) to the total number of pulses generated by the control computer (7). This ratio determines the non-linearity over the tested digital-to- analog converter (1). The main contribution is replacement of the necessary precision measurement of the output voltage of the tested digital-to-analogue converter (1) by measuring the time intervals, counting the number of pulses. The accuracy of the tester of the digital-to-analogue converters is determined by the precision of the digital multimeter (4) as a basic measuring device, without the necessity of accurate dynamic voltage recorder. Tester accuracy can be improved by increasing the number of pulses used to calculate the non-linearity.