Dallas, Tex. — Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) claims its four-channel, high-voltage, bipolar digital-to-analog converter (DAC) achieves the industry’s lowest drift and operates over the industry’s widest temperature range for high-precision test equipment, medical, industrial and instrumentation applications.
Developed on TI’s HPA07 analog CMOS process technology, the 16-bit DAC8734 is part of a new family of high-performance, bipolar DACs, including pin-compatible 12- and 14-bit devices, featuring up to six times lower drift than competing devices along with the widest operating temperature range and the highest initial accuracy, according to TI.
The 16-bit DAC8734 touts the lowest drift over time and temperature — 2 ppm over 500 hours and 3 ppm over 1000 hours — and a wide operating temperature range of -40°C to 105°C.
The DAC8734 offers automated test equipment (ATE) and medical equipment designers space savings in a 6 x 6-mm QFN-40 or 7 x 7-mm TQFP-48 package. The device is capable of driving +/-16 V or 0 to +20 V across four channels, which eliminates the external operational amplifier typically required for additional voltage gain. TI said designers only need to add a single voltage reference such as the REF5050 for bipolar operation.
In addition, integral non-linearity of +/-1 LSB, maximum (0.006 percent FSR), is achievable even at 16-bit resolution, said TI. To further boost precision, the family is trimmed during manufacturing to a maximum gain error of 4 LSB (at 16 bits). Built-in user calibration further reduces gain error down to +/-1 LSB, maximum, with a zero error of up to 1/8 LSB. The device’s programmable output range of 2x to 4x the reference voltage for bipolar operation at +/-2 V to +/-16 V is said to maximize design flexibility.
Availability: The 16-bit DAC8734 is available in both packages.
Pricing: Starts at $26.95 in quantities of 1,000. Two additional, pin-compatible devices in the family, the 14-bit DAC8234 and the 12-bit DAC7716, are priced at $19.95 and $10.95, respectively, in quantities of 1,000.
Resources: DAC8734 evaluation modules and samples, data converter portfolio, and TI’s E2E online community.