1. Market

1.1 Breakdown of needs and solutions

• Requirements

  Requirements are virtually unlimited, in terms of frequency, bandwidth and resolution.

  It's obvious that an ADC and/or DAC with 120 dB dynamic range, speeds in excess of gigahertz, power consumption of a tenth of a watt and a cost of less than €1 would solve many conversion problems. These components do not yet exist, but we must remember that there are other limitations, such as data transfer and processing which, beyond several hundred megahertz or millions of conversions per second (MIPS), become expensive or even difficult around 1 GHz, and cost in power dissipation.

  An approach to the theoretical and practical limits of converters...