
MOTOROLA
12-18
ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER SYSTEM
M68HC11
REFERENCE MANUAL
3. Electrical model of the A/D inputs
4. Frequency of A/D conversion requests to the particular channel
5. Analog level on the previously converted channel (in some cases)
The first three factors are straightforward, but the last two factors are subtle.
Figure
12-4
and
Figure 12-5
should be used in conjunction with the following discussion.
The maximum external source impedance of an analog signal is limited by the leakage
into the pin (see
Figure 12-5
). When V
RH
– V
RL
= 5.12 V, 1 LSB corresponds to 20
mV of input voltage. The worst-case input leakage of 400 nA acting through 10 k
of
external series resistance will result in about 0.2 LSBs of offset. Although the specifi-
cation states the maximum-allowable external series resistance is 10 k
, a higher
source impedance can be used, but it may cause additional errors in the results. The
leakage current arises from N-channel junction leakages that are worse at high tem-
peratures. Since only N-channel devices contribute to this current, it is unidirectional
toward V
SS
and will only cause errors, lowering A/D results below the expected value.
The minimum-desirable source impedance for an analog input signal should ensure
the current at the A/D pin never gets high enough to cause CMOS latchup. The HC-
MOS process used on the MC68HC11A8 is much more robust than older 14xxx-style
CMOS, but the current at a pin should still be limited to 25 mA or less. Although the
pins can withstand much more, 25 mA is considered a good design target. The source
impedance that meets this limitation will depend on the total system. For example,
suppose the worst-case scenario for a particular system results in an analog source
accidentally shorting to –12 V. The inherent internal diodes to V
SS
will clamp the volt-
age at the pin to about –0.7 V. This clamped voltage means a maximum current of 25
mA must cause 11.3 V to be dropped across a series-limiting resistance, which calcu-
lates to 452
. However, some guard band should be allowed for tolerances on the
clamped voltage, the source voltages, the resistor, etc.
NOTE
Two of the most common A/D application errors have been either too
much source impedance, resulting in higher-than-expected errors, or
too little source impedance, resulting in permanent damage to A/D
inputs. The most common cause of damage to A/D inputs is a very
low source impedance to a negative voltage, which is more than 1 V
below V
SS
.
The rate of change of the analog input signal is important if an external low-pass filter
is used to increase noise immunity. If too large an RC time constant is chosen for the
external filter, meaningful transitions may be filtered out of analog signal source. An
external lowpass filter also introduces a delay between the analog source and the A/
D input pin. If the A/D system is used to locate a timing reference to a peak level on
an analog input signal, this delay must be considered. If the input to a channel changes
drastically between successive samples in a sequence of conversions, a charge-share
mechanism can affect the accuracy of the result as described in the following para-
graphs. This charge-share mechanism is normally only visible in multiple-channel,
continuous-scan conversion sequences where two adjacent channels are connected