Digital signal processing
A digital signal processor (DSP) is optimized to perform computations on digitized representations of analog signals. Real-world signals such as audio, video, cell phone radio frequency (RF) transmissions, and radar are analog in nature, meaning the information being processed is the response of an electrical sensor to a continuously varying input voltage. Before a digital processor can begin to work with an analog signal, the signal voltage must be converted to a digital representation by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The following section describes the operation of ADCs and digital-to-analog converters (DACs).
ADCs and DACs
An ADC measures an analog input voltage and produces a digital output word representing the input voltage. A DAC performs the reverse operation of an ADC, converting a digital word to an analog voltage. ADCs often use a DAC internally during the conversion process.
A variety of circuit architectures are used in DAC...
