
LTC1966
16
1966fb
applicaTions inForMaTion
In any configuration, the averaging capacitor should be
connected between Pins 5 and 6. The LTC1966 RMS DC
output will be a positive voltage created at VOUT (Pin 5)
with respect to OUT RTN (Pin 6).
Power Supply Bypassing
The LTC1966 is a switched capacitor device, and large
transient power supply currents will be drawn as the
switching occurs. For reliable operation, standard power
supply bypassing must be included. For single supply
operation, a 0.01F capacitor from VDD (Pin 7) to GND
(Pin1) located close to the device will suffice. For dual
supplies, add a second 0.01F capacitor from VSS (Pin 4)
to GND (Pin 1), located close to the device. If there is a
good quality ground plane available, the capacitors can go
directly to that instead. Power supply bypass capacitors
can, of course, be inexpensive ceramic types.
The sampling clock of the LTC1966 operates at approxi-
mately 200kHz, and most operations repeat at a rate of
100kHz. If this internal clock becomes synchronized to a
multiple or submultiple of the input frequency, significant
conversionerrorcouldoccur.Thisisparticularlyimportant
when frequencies exceeding 10kHz can be injected into
the LTC1966 via supply or ground bounce. To minimize
this possibility, capacitive bypassing is recommended on
bothsupplieswithcapacitorsplacedimmediatelyadjacent
to the LTC1966. For best results, the bypass capacitors
should be separately routed from Pin 7 to Pin 1, and from
Pin 4 to Pin 1.
The LTC1966 needs at least 2.7V for its power supply,
more for dual supply configurations. The range of allow-
able negative supply voltages (VSS) vs positive supply
voltages (VDD) is shown in Figure 10. Mathematically, the
VSS constraint is:
–3 (VDD – 2.7V) ≤ VSS ≤ GND
The LTC1966 has internal ESD absorption devices, which
are referenced to the VDD and VSS supplies. For effective
in-circuit ESD immunity, the VDD and VSS pins must be
connected to a low external impedance. This can be ac-
complished with low impedance power planes or simply
with the recommended 0.01F decoupling to ground on
each supply.
Up and Running!
If you have followed along this far, you should have the
LTC1966 up and running by now! Don’t forget to enable
the device by grounding Pin 8, or driving it with a logic low.
Keep in mind that the LTC1966 output impedance is fairly
high,andthateventhestandard10MΩinputimpedanceof
a digital multimeter (DMM) or a 10× scope probe will load
down the output enough to degrade its typical gain error
of 0.1%. In the end application circuit, either a buffer or
anothercomponentwithanextremelyhighinputimpedance
(such as a dual slope integrating ADC) should be used.
For laboratory evaluation, it may suffice to use a bench
top DMM with the ability to disconnect the 10MΩ shunt.
If you are still having trouble, it may be helpful to skip
ahead a few pages and review the Troubleshooting Guide.
What About Response Time?
With a large value averaging capacitor, the LTC1966 can
easily perform RMS-to-DC conversion on low frequency
signals. It compares quite favorably in this regard to
prior generation products because nothing about the
S
circuitryistemperaturesensitive.SotheRMSresultdoesn’t
get distorted by signal driven thermal fluctuations like a
log/antilog circuit output does.
However, using large value capacitors results in a slow
response time. Figure 11 shows the rising and falling
step responses with a 1F averaging capacitor. Although
they both appear at first glance to be standard exponential
Figure 10. VSS Limits vs VDD
VDD (V)
2.5
–6
V SS
(V)
–5
–4
–3
–2
0
3
3.5
4
4.5
1966 F10
5
5.5
–1
LTC1966
OPERATES IN THIS RANGE