Achieving an extra bit of resolution by cascading ADCs

Thread Starter

PaulEE

Joined Dec 23, 2011
474
Hello all,

In a previous post, I discussed the need for a high-resolution PWM scheme. I was greeted with a bunch of great suggestions, which I appreciate.

The next piece of the puzzle is the ADC. Most PICs have 10-bit ADCs, which is so very close to what I need...

I have a 12-bit DAC feeding me a signal between 0v and 5v. Half of this range (0v to +2.5v) is responsible for a "heat" PWM signal, and the +2.5v to +5v range is responsible for "cool" PWM signal.

Before I generate the PWM, I need to digitize each of these ranges.

Since the signal begins at 12 bits and is split into two separate control signals, each signal has half the bits alloted, each signal can be considered an 11-bit quantity.

My question:
If I read the 11-bit range with two ADCs that are spec'd for 10-bits, can I squeeze another bit of resolution to match the original value? I have briefly looked into oversampling and various scaling techniques, but this subject, aside from simple ADC readings, is foreign to me.

Thank you again for your helpful suggestions.
 

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
34,280
If you oversample the voltage and average the value you can improve the resolution by a factor equal to the square-root of the number of oversamples. (See this for further explanation.) Thus to go from 10bits to 11bits resolution you would oversample by a factor of four. Then you average four consecutive 10bit samples to get one 11bit sample.
 

Thread Starter

PaulEE

Joined Dec 23, 2011
474
I need to describe an analog signal with 11 bits of resolution within a microcontroller using 10 bit ADCs in the same microcontroller. It will be two bytes long, LSB on the far right bit, reading the bytes from left to right. The PIC has several ADCs, but I'm not sure what the topology is in order to accomplish this.

Thanks in advance.
 

Thread Starter

PaulEE

Joined Dec 23, 2011
474
If you oversample the voltage and average the value you can improve the resolution by a factor equal to the square-root of the number of oversamples. (See this for further explanation.) Thus to go from 10bits to 11bits resolution you would oversample by a factor of four. Then you average four consecutive 10bit samples to get one 11bit sample.
I was also looking at a Microchip application note on oversampling, but your explanation was a bit more clean-cut than their math-tastic jumble.

Thanks for that.
 

davebee

Joined Oct 22, 2008
540
If your signal and ADC switching points are very stable then you'll get the same readings on every measurement regardless of how many measurements you make, and averaging will not help.

This is a case where a little noise in either the signal or the ADC reference voltage actually helps, because the noise will flip the level of the next ADC digit proportionally to how close the signal is to the switching point, and in that case, averaging will be able to extend the digitization to additional bits. Noise used in that way is referred to as "dither".

This article describes dither-enhanced ADCs a little more:

http://www.analog.com/library/analogDialogue/archives/40-02/adc_noise.html
 

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
34,280
If your signal and ADC switching points are very stable then you'll get the same readings on every measurement regardless of how many measurements you make, and averaging will not help.

This is a case where a little noise in either the signal or the ADC reference voltage actually helps, because the noise will flip the level of the next ADC digit proportionally to how close the signal is to the switching point, and in that case, averaging will be able to extend the digitization to additional bits. Noise used in that way is referred to as "dither".
Most actual systems have enough signal and internal ADC noise to provide the required "dither", often more than you want.;)
 
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