Enhancing Analog to Digital Converter Resolution Using Oversampling Technique

This paperis goingtoexposeamethodthatgivesus the possibility to use a low-resolution Successive Approximation Register (SAR) Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) in high resolution measurements. Oversampling and averaging can increase the resolution of a measurement without resorting to the cost and complexity of using expensive off-chip ADC's. This paper discusses about oversampling method for increase the resolution of a 12-bits ADC to 16-bits ADC. Oversampling method also rejects the noise by using averaging or moving averaging method. Oversampling method provides a softwarebased technique, resulting in an improved effective number of bits (ENOB) in the conversion result. It can be only used for measuring very low frequency or continuous signals, but the costs are lower compared to the price of the same highresolutionconverter. This paperdiscusseshowtoincreasethe resolution of ADC measurements by oversampling and averaging. Additionally, more in-depth description on types of ADC, theory of oversampling technique and example code on utilizing oversampling and averaging.