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Norwegian fabless analogue company Arctic Silicon Devices (ASD) launched a set of octal 12-bit ADCs which it calls the GLACIER family at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco this week.
GLACIER aims to reduce power in high performance applications like medical ultrasound and multiple antenna radio systems.
ASD is still under two years old. Last November it produced its SNOWFLAKE family of ADCs. GLACIER adds stuff like the integration of eight channels and high-speed LVDS outputs to SNOWFLAKE.
The company was founded in May 2007by John Raum, formerly at Nordic Semiconductor, Oystein Moldsvor, formerly of Chipidea, and Olav Lundquist formerly of Fairchild.
GLACIER is a family of 8 channel, 12-bit ADCs, speed graded at 20, 50, 65 and 80MSPS. Bot 12-bit and 14-bitLVDS output modes are available and can be selected through the SPI control interface. Noise performance (SNR) at 50MSPS with 8MHz frequency and 14-bit output is 72.2 dB (typ) and 71 dB (worst).
In power down mode GLACIER dissipates 10 microWatts and wake-up time is 18 microseconds. In sleep mode dissipation is 3mW per channel with 0.5 microseconds wake-up.
GLACIER is pin compatible with equivalent TI parts, and versions which are pin compatible with ADI parts are coming later.
David Manners, San Francisco
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