AD9974
Rev. A | Page 32 of 52
Variable Gain Amplifier
Optical Black Clamp
The VGA stage provides a gain range of approximately 6 dB to
42 dB, programmable with 10-bit resolution through the serial
digital interface. A gain of 6 dB is needed to match a 1 V input
signal with the ADC full-scale range of 2 V. When compared to
1 V full-scale systems, the equivalent gain range is 0 dB to 36 dB.
The optical black clamp loop is used to remove residual offsets
in the signal chain and track low frequency variations in the
CCD black level. During the optical black (shielded) pixel interval
on each line, the ADC output is compared with a fixed black
level reference, selected by the user in the clamp level register.
The value can be programmed between 0 LSB and 1023 LSB in
1023 steps.
The VGA gain curve follows a linear-in-dB characteristic. The
exact VGA gain is calculated for any gain register value by
The resulting error signal is filtered to reduce noise, and the
correction value is applied to the ADC input through a DAC.
Normally, the optical black clamp loop is turned on once per
horizontal line, but this loop can be updated more slowly to suit
a particular application. If external digital clamping is used during
postprocessing, the AD9974 optical black clamping can be disabled
using Bit 3 in AFE Register Address 0x00. When the loop is
disabled, the clamp level register can still be used to provide
fixed offset adjustment.
Gain (dB) = (0.0359 × Code) + 5.1 dB
where Code is the range of 0 to 1023.
VGA GAIN REGISTER CODE
V
G
A
GA
IN
(
d
B
)
42
36
30
24
18
12
6
0
127
255
383
511
639
767
895
1023
05
95
5-
0
47
Note that if the CLPOB loop is disabled, higher VGA gain
settings reduce the dynamic range because the uncorrected
offset in the signal path is gained up.
The CLPOB pulse should be aligned with the optical black
pixels of the CCD. It is recommended that the CLPOB pulse
duration be at least 20 pixels wide. Shorter pulse widths can be
used, but the ability of the loop to track low frequency variations
Blanking section for more timing information.
Figure 47. VGA Gain Curve
ADC
Digital Data Outputs
The AD9974 uses a high performance ADC architecture opti-
mized for high speed and low power. Differential nonlinearity
(DNL) performance is typically better than 0.5 LSB. The ADC
typical noise performance and linearity plots for the AD9974.
The AD9974 digital output data is latched using the DOUTPHASE
register value, as shown in
Figure 38. Output data timing is shown
in
Figure 22. The switching of the data outputs can couple noise
back into the analog signal path. To minimize any switching
noise while using default SHPLOC and SHDLOC, it is
recommended that the DOUTPHASEP register be set to a value
between 36 and 47. Other settings can produce good results, but
experimentation is necessary.