3 ms·

I respect those that have come before and I know there still exists some places where analog is not only the superior option but the only option however almost

• bgnn 2y ago
  most of analog design nowadays is getting the sign to the ADC, the ADC itself, and the clock generation for the ADC. The ADC is by far the most complex subsystem and it's partially digital partially analog, though the analog parts are also quite algorithmic (binary search, linear search, majority voting, LMS). The reverse path (DAC) is less common, like 10% of the cases you need a good DAC for signal generation. It's more hardcore analog and harder to design a DAC.
• exmadscientist 2y ago
  Analog lives in a few niches: - As you note, signal conditioning to stuff things into an ADC - Anywhere firmware is viewed as a liability (often medical or other hi-rel stuff) - Existing proven designs (do not underestimate this sector!) - Anywhere the cost of the signal conditioning circuitry might be comparable to the cost of just doing it outright in analog. This is mostly the low-cost realm, more rarely ultra-low-power, but sometimes you see it in other places too. - Line power supplies happen to be all of the above, so you see plenty of analog there You used to see analog in high-performance stuff (ultra-high-speed/RF or ultra-high-bit-depth), but this has mostly gone into either digital or whackadoodle exotica. Like frontends for those 100GHz oscilloscopes, which are both!