Linear Technology has introduced a family of low-power, precision 16-/14-/12-bit unbuffered voltage output digital-to-analogue converters (DACs).

Both the unipolar LTC2641 and bipolar LTC2642 draw just 120[micro]A of supply current while settling to within 0.5LSB for a full-scale step in only 1[micro]s.

These voltage output DACs feature a 0.5nV.s glitch impulse, which will benefit AC applications such as waveform generation where the low glitch reduces the transient voltages between code changes in the DAC.

The LTC2641-16 and LTC2642-16 offer 16-bit monotonic resolution, +/-2LSB(max) INL, +/-2LSB(max) unipolar offset error, and +/-5LSB(max) gain error.

The DACs are designed for low drift of 0.1ppm/ deg C over the -40 to +85 deg C industrial temperature range.

With drift specifications of this order, the chips can be used in precision DC positioning systems, gain and offset adjustment applications, automatic test equipment and data acquisition systems.

For bipolar operation, the LTC2642 includes matched scaling resistors for use with a precision external amplifier such as the LT1678, generating a +/-5V output swing.

Operating from a 2.7V to 5.5V supply voltage, these DACs each feature power-on reset circuitry that resets the LTC2642 to mid-scale and the LTC2641 to zero-scale at power-up. Communicating via a 3-wire SPI/QSPI/Microwire-compatible serial interface at clock rates up to 50MHz, these DACs can interface directly with optocouplers for applications requiring isolation.