Q9Microprocessor
Question
Q.9. Give the difference between ADC and DAC.
Answer
An ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) converts a continuous analog voltage into a discrete digital code, while a DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) performs the reverse conversion, converting a digital code into a corresponding continuous analog voltage.
An ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) accepts a continuously-varying analog input voltage and converts it into a corresponding discrete digital output code (a binary number representing the quantized value of the input voltage at the instant of sampling), used whenever a microcontroller needs to read a real-world analog signal (from a sensor, microphone, etc.) for digital processing. A DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) performs the reverse operation, accepting a digital input code from the microcontroller and producing a corresponding continuous analog output voltage or current, used whenever a microcontroller needs to generate an analog output signal (to drive a speaker, an analog meter, or a motor control signal, for example) from digitally-computed data.