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22
LTC2421/LTC2422
24212f
resis
tance ground plane through a minimum length trace.
The use of multiple via holes is recommended to further
reduce the connection resistance.
In an alternative configuration, the GND pin of the con-
verter can be the single-point-ground in a single point
grounding system. The input signal ground, the reference
signal ground, the digital drivers ground (usually the digi-
tal ground) and the power supply ground (the analog
ground) should be connected in a star configuration with
the common point located as close to the GND pin as
possible.
The power supply current during the conversion state
should be kept to a minimum. This is achieved by restrict-
ing the number of digital signal transitions occurring dur-
ing this period.
While a digital input signal is in the range 0.5V to
(V
CC
–0.5V), the CMOS input receiver draws additional
current from the power supply. It should be noted that,
when any one of the digital input signals (F
O
, CS and SCK
in External SCK mode of operation) is within this range, the
LTC2421/LTC2422 power supply current may increase
even if the signal in question is at a valid logic level. For
micropower operation and in order to minimize the poten-
tial errors due to additional ground pin current, it is recom-
mended to drive all digital input signals to full CMOS levels
[V
IL
< 0.4V and V
OH
> (V
CC
– 0.4V)].
Severe ground pin current disturbances can also occur
due to the undershoot of fast digital input signals. Under-
shoot and overshoot can occur because of the imped-
ance mismatch at the converter pin when the transition
time of an external control signal is less than twice the
propagation delay from the driver to LTC2421/LTC2422.
For reference, on a regular FR-4 board, signal propaga-
tion velocity is approximately 183ps/inch for internal
traces and 170ps/inch for surface traces. Thus, a driver
generating a control signal with a minimum transition
time of 1ns must be connected to the converter pin through
a trace shorter than 2.5 inches. This problem becomes
particularly difficult when shared control lines are used
and multiple reflections may occur. The solution is to
carefully terminate all transmission lines close to their
characteristic impedance.
APPLICATIOU
W
U
U
Parallel termination near the LTC2421/LTC2422 pin will
eliminate this problem but will increase the driver power
dissipation. A series resistor between 27
and 56
placed
near the driver or near the LTC2421/LTC2422 pin will also
eliminate this problem without additional power dissipa-
tion. The actual resistor value depends upon the trace
impedance and connection topology.
Driving the Input and Reference
The analog input and reference of the typical delta-sigma
analog-to-digital converter are applied to a switched ca-
pacitor network. This network consists of capacitors switch-
ing between the analog input (V
IN
), ZS
SET
(Pin 5) and FS
SET
(Pin 2). The result is small current spikes seen at both V
IN
and V
REF
. A simplified input equivalent circuit is shown in
Figure 16.
The key to understanding the effects of this dynamic input
current is based on a simple first order RC time constant
model. Using the internal oscillator, the LTC2421/
LTC2422’s internal switched capacitor network is clocked
at 153,600Hz corresponding to a 6.5
μ
s sampling period.
Fourteen time constants are required each time a capacitor
is switched in order to achieve 1ppm settling accuracy.
Therefore, the equivalent time constant at V
IN
and V
REF
should be less than 6.5
μ
s/14 = 460ns in order to achieve
1ppm accuracy.
Figure 16. LTC2421/LTC2422 Equivalent Analog Input Circuit
V
REF
V
IN
V
CC
R
SW
5k
AVERAGE INPUT CURRENT:
I
IN
= 0.25(V
IN
– 0.5 V
REF
)fC
EQ
I
REF(LEAK)
I
REF(LEAK)
V
CC
R
SW
5k
C
1pF (TYP)
R
SW
5k
I
IN(LEAK)
I
IN
24212 F16
I
IN(LEAK)
SWITCHING FREQUENCY
f = 153.6kHz FOR INTERNAL OSCILLATOR (f
O
= LOGIC LOW OR HIGH)
f = f
EOSC
FOR EXTERNAL OSCILLATORS
GND