Signal Conditioning Based On Programmable Analog Circuits

Programmable circuits are commonly used class of electronic devices. In practice this term usually refers to microcontrollers with different kind of programmable memories and to programmable logic circuits (PAL, CPLD, FPGA). Most of these devices are digital circuits. Thanks to the huge progress in miniaturization of electronic circuits, the new class of devices -programmable analog circuits - was put on the market. These circuits bring new possibilities to design electronic circuit. One of the most promising fields of application is construction of analog signal conditioning circuits. This paper describes feature and parameters of sample programmable analog circuits. It depicts internal structure and theory of operation of these devices. One of commercially available programmable analog circuits was used in development of signal conditioning block for vibration measurement system. It works as programmable gain amplifier and low-pass anti-aliasing filter with programmable cut-off frequency. Amplifier transient characteristics for different gain values and frequency response of the filter were measured