White Paper: High resolution 24-bit DAQ card fits

into the standard CDROM’s slot.

G. Rozite1 and A.Murashov1
1
Institute of Physical Energetics

21 Aizkraukles Str., Riga LV-1006, LATVIA

gunars59@inbox.lv

Abstract
Most commercially available data acquisition cards have either low resolution (<16-bits) or are made on
audio codec (ADC) chips, with a very poor DC accuracy (although a 24-bit resolution), and are not
applicable in places requiring high dynamic range and low noises, especially in the 0.1-10 Hz region. Here a
new concept of high resolution auto-ranging 10V – 10mV PC card for demanding scientists is presented. The
card supports plugging remote amplifiers/conditioners as well as remote power and biasing. Such unique
features of the card make it applicable for a wide range of scientific tasks, e.g. in laser interferometers, lock-
in amplifiers, for spectrum measurements, phase demodulation, statistical deconvolution, etc. The
architecture proposed by the authors is flexible, because most of the tasks are done in DSP, while the analog
part is realized on the 4th order ADS1254 super-high resolution delta-sigma ADC, which became available
only in 2008. The authors discuss the functionality of the proposed card and consider the implementation
details. The concept has been created as the result of multiple cross-correlated user requirements. The
proposed hardware concept is royalty-free and can be employed under the GNU public license; however the
firmware should remain commercial to promote development effort.

Key words: 24-bit DAQ USB card, USB seismometer, USB Laser vibrometer, Electrochemical impedance
spectroscopy.

Introduction
The only known supplier of 24-bit DC measurement PC cards is the National Instruments with their
http://www.ni.com/dataacquisition product range. If your product is not there, then it probably does not exist
at all. In the past, our laboratory bought two Keithley 2000 digital multimeters with the aim to employ them
as channel digitizers. However, the SCPI language, (www.scpiconsortium.org ) in which most digital
instruments (including Keithley 2000) communicate to the host, can send data in retriggerable packets. Such
serial communication (RS232) takes ~160 ms to start new measurement series and does not allow continuous
stream. If we want to increase speed and acquire sample by sample, then we lose resolution.
Another approach we have tried to employ was 24-bit sound cards (E-MU 1212M series). With a
minor tuning it was possible to provide pure DC measurements preserving full AK5394 chip speed. However
a new problem arose - thermal fluctuations, which reduced the ADC chip performance, so only a massive
heat sink on AK5394 chip allowed us to obtain ~25uV noise plus offset from our E-MU 1212M series sound
card (or 5 digits resolution). Interesting enough, the chip temperature was affected also by the output code
warming chip up! Besides the heat sink, also large linear regulators were employed to supply low-noise high-
stability ±12V and 5V power to E-MU 1212M. The results of experiments allow us to conclude that so far
the scientific tasks [1] have not been provided with high resolution measurement cards. The proposed PC
cards concept based on new 4th order ADS1254 super-high resolution delta-sigma ADC aims to fill the gap in
this growing market segment.
Functionality

The proposed concept of USB card is illustrated by Figs 1-4. Block diagram in Fig.1 gives a brief
overview of the analog in/outs, DSP processor and front panel controls. Following the design of conventional
PC sound cards, also here should be bi-directional audio streams – up-stream to host and down/control
stream to the USB card. That can easily be achieved by AT91SAM9XE DSP processor dual USB ports
seating on a motherboard’s 10 pin USB header (like a PC internal 3.5”card reader). With the basic firmware
version an AT91SAM9XE DSP processor serves as a stream router, and the PC card works much like a
conventional sound card with two 24-bit inputs, two 16-bit voltage outputs, and one current output. In more
sophisticated applications DSP can be used as the optical phase demodulator, thus forming a high-resolution
laser seismometer, or a nm-range displacement sensor.

Fig.1 Block diagram of USB card

The AT91SAM9XE was chosen because of its cheep development tools, high performance and good C-
friendly programming, allowing the use of embedded Linux as real-time OS. The 16-bit output DACs shown
in the figure form a programmable ±10V voltage source (Out A), and a 3A current source (Out B), which can
be employed as a precision battery charger in the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)
applications. The dual A Outs are tied in a bridged configuration and provide differential outputs suitable for
driving a wide range (with only the load impedance limited to >4ohm) of piezo- and magnetic actuators.
They are low-noise (<1uV) close to ideal voltage sources suitable also for reference biases. Galvanic
isolation from the noisy PC chassis ground is realized through the transformer coupled power supply and
USB isolation, which is rather tricky. Another way would be to isolate control wires in DAC/ADC side. The
ADC sampling frequency can be PLL-locked to the external clock input by CS2000 (Cirrus Logic). The
presence of a laser source requires two additional connectors: DIO and LASER driver. The DIO connector
forms a serial bridge, while the second connector supplies high-stability power to external laser controller.
The overall line regulation for +5V and dual ±7.5V is ~120 dB, which is a very good result.

Fig.2 24-bit ADC input and bias pedestal.

The ADS1254 converter allows only unipolar 0…5V input (which is enough for scientists working
with photodiode signals). With 6 dB attenuators it is possible extend even further the input voltage range – up
to 10V (single input configuration), and ±20V common range (in differential configuration). We found that
the ADS1254 reference input introduces a very high temperature coefficient of 35uV/C. To overcome this
limitation, much attention was devoted to the temperature compensation. The Pi attenuator on top of 4th order
ADC forms a TC compensation voltage – 50 uV which trough the 100R NCT is feed into non-inverting input
of U10, and finally zero 35uV temperature offset. Also, thermal isolation around the reference U4 and ADCs
and DACs (dashed line noted in Fig.1 as Isothermal Block) would increase the overall stability. To reduce
thermal fluctuations, all outputs - differential amplifier U9, U1:A BIAS DAC and voltage reference U4 were
buffered. Besides, DIP packages would increase the temperature stability, because of better heat dissipation.
The biasing circuit is formed by BIAS DAC8831 and two unity gain U1:A, U1:C buffers. The DAC8831EP
were chosen owing to their good temperature coefficients. The BIAS DAC8831EP forms the 5V output
which is directly fed into the U2 ADC CH1- input. The next 5V BIAS output is attenuated by the order of 10
and recursively fed back to the ground reference, forming a 65mV artificial ground offset. Such arrangement
allows coarse and fine bias adjustments, done manually from the front panel, or automatically after pressing
ZERO button. The ZERO-ing routine is interesting and needs a deeper analysis. The sampled data from DSP
are averaged in a memory accumulator - moving average estimate (see the right most corner in Fig.2). When
cashed samples are enough to satisfactorily approximate the mean value; the estimate data are enveloped by
hamming windows, and then digitally compared with the cashed samples in estimation array. Only less
deviated samples that have passed through the comparator are used for bias compensation. Due to the
ADS1254 ADC chip traits, the cards 20V input range is unipolar, though can be shifted by using internal
MUX, however this is impractical. Instead, in the proposed concept we assume that the U9 INA115 output is
always positive, whereas the negative voltage will be considered as an over-range error. Internal MUX
implements a time gate, synchronized to EXT.CLK. An ADS1254-based design can be considered as a DC
version, while the ADS1281 providing a true ±2.5V “audio range” input – as an AC version, especially for
electromiogram (EMG) or cardiogram (ECG) applications (although it is out of our interests). The U9
1:1000 Programmable Gain Amplifier makes the input range tuning very convenient. When there is a test
signal on the input, pressing the RANGE button will start the auto range routine. The measuring device will
automatically set the best range for the input signal. Once the range is set, the ADC will perform the
conversation of even overdriving inputs. To avoid such overload situations, an internal buzzer and the front
panel LEDs will tell the user that the RANGE needs attention.

Fig.3 DAC programmable analog OUT drivers.

All the three outputs in Fig.3 are DAC-programmable, and can be employed to generate DDS
waveforms. Outputs A+ and A- are a true wide band up to 10 kHz, while the bandwidth of current source B is
limited to <10 Hz due to the SEPIC converter large output capacitors.
The current source was designed as a battery charger, giving possibility to charge also 24V batteries.
The mutually coupled inductors L17:A L17:B can achieve zero ripple condition only at given duty cycle, but
0.25…0.95 duty range in our case would produce high ripple. Therefore SEPIC converter was used together
with so-called harmonics rectifier resonating at 307.2 kHz (multiple of ADC sampling frequency), and
improving rectifiers efficiency by ~1.25. From rectifiers OUT_B small fraction of HF harmonics returns to
ground via node D9, D11, R7, and should be sensed by U2:A feedback amplifier. It can be seen, that current
sense resistors R46, R7 and weight resistors R47, R8 are equal, producing total current, which steers U6
UCC38C42 controller and is feed to ADC input (CH_CURRENT). Programming of duty cycle was realized
through DAC U2 and buffer Q17. The maximum duty cycle 0.95 corresponds to 0,05 V at the CS pin, while
minimum 0.25 - 0,75 V at the same pin. The Vref pin 8 of U6 creates ~40uV noise, and therefore has
extensively filtered by a 47mF super capacitor. The voltage divider R2, R3, RV4 senses the charge level,
whereas for better flexibility a 5V CHARGE_V was duplicated also in the OUT B connector, allowing
voltage sensing from the multi-element battery midpoint. It should be remembered that the SENSE input is
not overvoltage-protected.
Outputs A are formed from two identical AB-class amplifiers with a gain of 2. The analog SW2
(SINGLE) toggles between the bridged and the single ended load, whereas SW3A and SW3B (BIAS_ON)
adds Bessel low-pass filtering capability (a 10 s filter) needed for remote sensor_BIAS. Two precision RV2,
RV5 potentiometers trim the amplifier gains to the desired value. The cermet trimming resistor RV1 has
effect only at the open feedback loop, otherwise the loop gain completely removes any offsets, so such a
resistor makes no sense. The output bias, which is typically 15-20 mA, through Q9, Q10 transistors is
temperature-compensated via the network including RT1.
In the end, a question naturally arises: is it reasonable to use such complicated output drivers if a wide range
of audio amplifiers are available – e.g. TDA2040, TDA7490L? Yes these can be used also at the expense of
reduced phase margin and linearity.

Fig.4 Transformer isolating power supply.

The super-resolution [1] card will not also work with noisy 12V and 5V PC power. A residential 12V
ripple varies around 100mV. The motherboard and peripherals of different load conditions increase the
voltage uncertainty, whereas HDD adds wide-band noises. The only escape is to keep an on-board power
converter (see Fig.4), of approximately 36W power. The development of this power supply was aimed to
achieve the best possible line regulation and the minimum ripple noise. It is known that all linear regulators
(like 78XX, TL431, LM317) use bandgap references [1], so their outputs are very noisy (~30uV) and has
high temperature drift. Besides, these regulators have also very high temperature coefficients. In our design
we tried to avoid them as much as possible. Heart of primary side is U3, the Motorola MC34067 newest H-
Bridge controller. The quasi-resonant mode employed here essentially realizes ZVS below the resonance
frequency (800 kHz). Note that during normal operation a transformer presents a capacitive load, and the
frequency of a higher VCO voltage corresponds to a higher power output. Special attention was devoted to
attenuate the most unwanted component – a 100Hz ripple coming from the ATX power supply. By C12, L4
elements shown in Fig.5 the ripple is suppressed by 40dB. Transformer TR2 is wound on an ETD29 core,
but, since there is not enough space to wind all required supplies, the digital supplies are made from an
intermediate 12V output. Since the switching frequency is very high, the windings should be executed with
litz wire or with parallel strands because of skin effect. Increasing winding density by using copper foils (e.g.
www.ppi.ie ) produces more space, but acceptable results can be gotten from 4 copper strips at the least. The
15V and 7.5V cross-coupled filter inductors L5 and L8 add the voltage tracking capability to the linear
supply and form close-to-ideal output voltage. The transformer-coupled feedback generator UC2901D is far
better than the TL431 opto-coupler counterpart because of its higher bandwidth and lower noise. The linear
regulator U4 adds better stability against overload conditions, keeping supply voltage of U5 at a constant
level. Secondary side diodes are damped by ferrite beads L6, L7, L10, L11, L14, L15, thus significantly
reducing EMI noise.

Elements of design and front panel controls

The most advantageous card location is the front panel CDROM slots (a draft is shown on Fig. 5).
There is much more room, and, which is most important, there are less EMI noises than in other PC chassis
parts. The most common controls are rotating encoder knobs and two resin press buttons used for the auto
ranging and automatic offset zeroing.

Fig.5. Front panel outlook (150% scaled).

Two LEMO 7P REDEL sockets for remote amplifier inputs A and B allow several custom-
manufactured amplifiers/conditioners to be plugged in, making the proposed USB card really universal. The
remote pin-out has not been yet standardized, however we can expect here that the cable jumper (see PLUG-
IN in Fig.2) will shorten the negative input to ground if the differential mode is not used. Remote power, bias
and one GPIO pin should be enough even for most dedicated applications. The best possible resolution can
be achieved by using precise biasing circuit (Fig.2. BIAS DAC, U1:A, Q3, U1:C, SW4) driven from
incremental encoders (e.g. www.bourns.com/pdfs/em14.pdf). As one can expect, non-pressed knob rotation
will allow fine adjustment, and, while pressed, it will drive the whole 5V bias range in 1 or 2 turns. Every
front knob motion should be monitored by an INT event. A rich set of AT91SAM9XE256 GPIO pins does
such job very well. It can detect touching of 2 x 3 = 6 encoder lines, 3 encoder press switches and 2 resin
buttons. As the encoder reads input through a micro-controller, it can be used for multiple controls. The third
encoder has some DSP parameter functions, which will depend on the installed firmware.

firmware version 3rd encoder function/ green LEDs

pressed function function
Basic spectrum sensor_BIAS Fine/Rough under/overrange
Heterodyne interferometer Integration time, ms /LPF Hz under/overrange
2-ch vibrometer /nanosensor Integration time, ms /LPF Hz phase state 90/180
deg.
Table.1 DSP parameter functions according to the firmware versions.
 The white coaxial input EXT. CLK. input in Fig. 5 is either ADC time gate used to sample A or B
inputs during predetermined time interval, or a PLL reference clock used to generate DDS PZT waveform.
The Deflation mirror coaxial audio socket is differential amplifier INA115 output (used in the laser
seismometer, see Fig.7). The laser controller is powered from a high-stability low-noise 5V and ±7.5V power
sources expanded to the front panel through the 4-pin header. The SYNC RS232 connector makes a fully
duplex serial interface with the external laser driver-controller, and the additional SYNC RS232 DIO pins
(visible also in Fig.1) can be used to sense or drive the TTL inputs.

Firmware
Firmware is known to the most expensive part of every project, therefore its development should rely upon
on a commercial basis (e.g. involving a third party’s developers). Real time embedded OS and support library
(presenting hardware) are the minimum, that developers could get starting their own scientific application.
From the host side its most demanding component is a low-latency ASIO USB driver, which probably has
already been written off. ASIO framework is able to handle 8_IN/8_OUT data streams in a parallel manner,
which is more than necessary. It has delay time 2 -100 ms (latency), and this time is always constant (for
ASIO features see [2]). The data in an ASIO stream are supplied with the so-called time code. Essentially, it
is a local session time from the beginning of measurements till the end. Perhaps, a good idea could be supply
an ASIO add-in for MathLab.
Next, we will discuss how the proposed card can solve scientific tasks by using application specific
signal conditions/preamplifiers and firmware.

Basic spectrum
The basic spectrum is characteristic of OLED and solar materials and generally relates to photodiode signals
[3]. The fiber pick-up units and photodiode amplifiers are high-impedance I-V converters powered from a
dual 7.5V remote power supply. A BIAS sensor (see Fig.2.) allows measuring I-V dependences directly from
the card thus avoiding external wiring. Due to extremely high requirements to photodiode BIAS stability and
noise, amplifier A+ (see Fig.3.) was low-pass filtered by a 10 s Bessel filter by setting BIAS_ON.

Fig.6 External Quantum Efficiency measurements for characterization of solar materials.

Fig. 6 shows that a collimated light beam coming from the high-intensity discharge lamp through the
chopper modulator is fed into the monochromator input slit (typically 0.2 ..2mm wide), which is used as a
feedback actuator keeping the light intensity at the monochromator’s output at a constant level. The output
beam from the monochromator through the light guide is applied to the measured PV sample located in the
vacuum chamber. A small fraction of the output light is applied also to the light level photo diode used to
calculate the light feedback signal and the external quantum efficiency (EQE) described also in [4]. A very
important in this setup is the photo-interrupter signal driving lock-in synchronous demodulation realized in a
PC processing program (it could also be done in DSP, but due to the availability of existing Windows
programs and dedicated algorithms, this part is omitted). Essentially, after both channel demodulations, the
reference signal will be subtracted from the light signal giving the pure photo-EDS proportional to the EQE
of the PV sample. Synchronism here must be held to a very high degree. To achieve this, a dark/light TTL
signal is directed into a separate audio stream with the applied time code attributes! A question naturally
arises: is it reasonable to stream TTL signals while the USB events can perform the work? No USB event
would arrive to host PC 5-100 ms before the actual sampled data because of the ASIO driver’s latency; but it
would be always correct for a streamed version, because it would be repackaged in a synchronous manner
(see ASIO features in [9]).
Another useful feature of this setup is the ability to take V-I dependences of a PV sample (see also
[3]) by using a sensor_ BIAS (Fig.2, 3). The DDS Waveform generation feature is not required in this setup,
however it can be employed to drive coils, generate bias voltage, etc.

Heterodyne laser seismometer.

In Fig.7, the interference pattern (e.g. the pattern from a two-arm Michelson interferometer) is
focused onto the mirror of the electric-mechanical deflector. The coming back pattern is displayed on the
transparent-reflecting grating (lenses are omitted). The fringes of this grating are parallel to those of the
initial interference pattern (e.g. 8 kHz), with their periods coinciding.

Fig.7. Laser seismometer.

The servo-loop shown in Fig.8 is used to compensate the slightest shifts of the interference pattern by
deflection along the grating, thus forming an optical frequency converter – a heterodyne. The servo-loop
output current is proportional to the pendulum displacement. Thus the feedback loop of seismometer is
locked [4-6]. In the differential buffer amplifier INA115 the photodiode PDA- and PDA+ signals are
subtracted and forwarded to the deflation coil, which is driven by very small current – typically ~200uA. The
deflation signal is proportional to the measured acceleration, which further is fed into the integrator (through
ADC) and PID controller. This part of feedback compensates the gravitational force applied to pendulum,
thus keeping it in a constant (levitating) position. Probably, this is the most time-critical DSP task, because
the overall latency must be kept within 1ms, which corresponds to a 1kH bandwidth. The laser-synchronized
PZT waveform generation is not a very time-consuming task, and can easily be run in background. The
integration time constant is adjusted by the first from left rotary knob. DDS generated PZT waveform can be
synchronized to external clock, e.g. 5 kHz.

Fig.8 Feedback system of the seismometer

The force balancing coil driver mentioned above is shown on Fig.8. Here we can see that the velocity
signal is made up by integrating the acceleration signal. Further, the velocity signal is fed into Proportional
Integral Derivative (PID) controller, ensuring that the force applied to the force balancing coil will not upset
the levitating equilibrium [6].

2-channel Doppler vibrometer - displacement sensor

Another application of card is a two-channel Doppler vibrometer. Laser beam is divided into a
reference beam and a signal beam. The signal beam is directed onto a vibrating test structure, and the back-
reflected light is recombined with the internal reference beam. When the test structure moves, the frequency
of the signal beam is shifted, resulting in the intensity modulation of the recombined beam due to
interference between the reference and the signal beams [7].

Fig.9 2-channel Doppler vibrometer

 One complete cycle of the intensity modulation by a 2-channel Doppler vibrometer corresponds to its
surface movement of l/2 = 0.316 mm (half the wavelength of a helium-neon laser source of 0.633 mm). The
frequency of this modulation (referred to as the Doppler frequency, Fd) is given by Fd = 2v/l, where v is the
surface movement velocity. The recombined light is split into two paths, and a quarter-wave plate is used so
that the two signals are in quadrature (sine and cosine) allowing the direction of motion to be determined. A
balanced detection scheme, with two detectors in each channel, is used to achieve low noise and high
sensitivity.
The lock-in amplifier in Fig.10 is a type of amplifier that can extract a signal with a known carrier
wave from extremely noisy environment (-60 dB below the noise power). It is, in fact, a homodyne with an
extremely low-pass filter (making a very narrow band). Lock-in amplifiers usually measure both in-phase (X)
and out-of-phase (Y) components of the signal and can derive the magnitude (R) from them. Many
applications of the lock-in technique only require recovering the signal amplitude rather than the relative
phase to the reference signal, however here we recover only phase.

Fig.10 2-channel vibrometer (A and B channels are identical except single PZT)

The quadrature fringe counting [8] allows combining two distinctive digital phase measuring
techniques with mutually complementary characteristics (see Fig.10): one (fast) is counting the Doppler shift
frequency, e.g. 8.0 kHz beat frequency for high-velocity measurements, while the other (slow) – the lock-in
demodulation with 80 Hz beat frequency for the nm displacement resolution. The two techniques can be
operated in switching mode in accordance with the object’s speed in a synchronized way. Two green LEDs
are flashed when the demodulator phase goes through 90 and 180 degrees, accordingly. Due to space
limitations, Fig.1 has a minor flaw, showing the fringe counter only for B input, but in fact there should be
two identical fringe counters. The third rotary knob (Fig.5) noted as “DSP param” serves here as adjuster for
either integration time or filter frequency.
Several other firmware versions could be developed to maintain required setup and measuring
conditions. Please excuse us for omitting Electrochemical Impedances Spectroscopy and many other possible
applications. With the new card they appeared pretty trivial.

Conclusions.
We have tried to extend cards functionality and usage range as much as possible providing
high resolution, low noise, flexibility, etc., nevertheless, there is still place for discussions and improvements.
Also microprocessor and digital part schematics are still missing and waits for somebody to get completed.
As the consequence cards concept was leaved open and free. Although the proposed circuits are not properly
prototyped, at least an attempt has been made to cope with the mentioned problems, and, possibly all in one
solution. ASIO add-ins for MathLab have been found to be quite suitable for scientific research and are
preferred host driver, while LabView drivers (National Instruments) are not of primary importance because
of SCPI language (www.scpiconsortium.org) speed limitations. The proposed card(s) could make the
laboratory measurements in fundamental physics much cheaper, replacing huge amount of expensive
scientific rack-mount chassis and boxes.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr. L. Latkovskis and Prof. I. Bilinskis for valuable comments and help.

References

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http://cid-14c8a52578e68092.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Scientific%20DAQ%20USB%20card