2. Technical description and architecture of NACs

This paragraph describes the most common architectures: parallel and Sigma-Delta (ΣΔ), as well as the less common serial architecture, and their generic performances, as well as the technologies encountered depending on the architecture.

The main architecture encountered is parallel. It was the first to be used. The other architecture, which is more recent (1980) but increasingly used, thanks to its intrinsic high precision, is the Sigma-Delta (ΣΔ) architecture.

If necessary, the input interface converts the word received from the serial bus to parallel, and blocks this word with latch for as long as necessary, until the next word to be converted.

• Serial conversion is rarely used and is explained in paragraph ...