Hello Folks,Haven't used DACs in a while, did it with PWM all the time. Now I need to design something that requires lots of low noise DC levels to be set.What is the common jelly-bean 8-bit multi-DAC with a serial bus these days?The requirements would be the usual. Multi-sourced if possible, lots of channels, under 50c/channel or at least under $1/channel, 8 bits or more, serial bus with two or at the most three wires, speed can be in the low kHz range. A chip select would be nice but that could also be handled by gating logic.I have seen some nice octal 8-bitters like the TLC5628 which unfortunately needs an extra load command line (but that would be ok). Don't know whether that one is a mainstream part and I want to avoid settling for a boutique part, which is why I am asking.Then there'll be the challenge to bus the data to several dozen modules with the DACs on them but that's a whole 'nother matter. Got to wait until the guys tell me what the bus is going to be. Hopefully nothing that needs lots of arbitration.-- Regards, Joerg

What is the jelly bean DAC du jour?

Nov 08, 2006 45 Replies

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Arlet 19 years ago

Did you look at the AD1555 ? It produces a digital bitstream, which you could feed into your own FPGA based filter.

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Tony 19 years ago

Thanks. It looks like a nice chip, but at $81 each, my 12 channels would be about $950 over budget. I'm guessing it's an older design.

Regards, Tony Tony (remove the "_" to reply by email)

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Piglit 19 years ago

What the world needs is an 8 bit version of the TDA8444 (I2C in, 8 x 6 bit analog out, costs next to nothing) M

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Joerg 19 years ago

It's around $2 a pop, not exactly "nothing" for an octal 6-bitter. Here is an octal 8-bit DAC for less (around $1.50):

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Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com

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Piglit 19 years ago

Almost got interested in that one (I use the 8444 in all sorts of things and wouldn't mind the extra resolution) but the Rohm part seems to be unobtanium (in findchips). Where can these beasties be found in non-enormous quantities for a buck and a half ? cheers M

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Joerg 19 years ago

Don't know about non-enormous quantities but Digikey has 7500 of them in stock. $1.45/2500. Usually my clients go through that qty in a jiffy.

Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com

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