SBASB61 August 2026 ADS124S18
PRODUCTION DATA
Monitoring a 3.3V rail while using a 3.3V AVDD supply for the ADS114S18 requires to attenuate the rail voltage before feeding the signal to the ADC inputs due to the device input voltage limitations. See the maximum absolute input voltage specification in the Recommended Operating Conditions table. To allow for margin in the design, the resistor divider values, R1 and R2, are chose such that at a 3.6V rail voltage the input signal at the analog input is less than 2.5V. In this configuration, the ADS114S18 can use gain = 1 and the internal 2.5V reference to measure rail voltages exceeding the overvoltage threshold of 3.5V. Using R1 = 50kΩ and R2 = 100kΩ sets the nominal ADC input voltage for a 3.3V rail to 2.2V. The 3.5V overvoltage threshold yields an input voltage of 2.33V, and the 3.1V undervoltage threshold and input voltage of 2.07V.
The device can measure the 1.8V and 1.2V rails directly using gain = 1 and the internal 2.5V reference without the need for any attenuation.
As a next step in the system design, calculate the digital comparator thresholds for the three rails. The design leverages the unipolar straight binary coding of the ADS114S18 because only positive input voltages need to be measured. With that, the LSB size using gain = 1 and the internal 2.5V reference calculates to:
Use Equation 40 to calculate the digital comparator high and low threshold code values for the three rails.
As an example, set the digital comparator low threshold value for the 3.3V rail undervoltage detection to 2.07V / 38.15μV = 54176, which equates to a HEX code of D3A0h.
Next, select the sequencer operation. This example uses three sequence steps, one step for each supply rail measurement. Use sequencer mode SEQ_MODE[1:0] = 11b to implement an autonomous rail monitor that does not require any host interaction. This monitoring system example takes four consecutive measurements of each rail before switching to the next rail measurement. The comparator alert counter threshold is set to two so that two consecutive measurements on each step need to exceed the threshold before tripping the comparator.
The required speed mode and digital filter settings depend on the required fault detection time of the system.
Configure GPIO3 as an active-low, push-pull ALERT output as described in the ALERT Output section. In addition, add a pull-down resistor at the ALERT pin. This way, a low-level on the ALERT pin signals a supply fault to the host even when the ADS114S18 loses power or got reset, because GPIO3 reverts back to a High-Z input during device reset.
Table 9-4 summarizes the critical device register bit settings for this example.
| REGISTER BITS | SEQUENCE STEP 0 3.3V RAIL |
SEQUENCE STEP 1 1.8V RAIL |
SEQUENCE STEP 2 1.2V RAIL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Status and General Configuration Page | |||
| REF_VAL | 1b (2.5V internal reference) | ||
| GPIO3_CFG[1:0] | 10b (GPIO3 configured as push-pull digital output) | ||
| ALERT_PIN_POL | 0b (ALERT output is active low) | ||
| GPIO3_SRC | 1b (COMP_ALERTn flag controls the GPIO3 output) | ||
| SEQ_MODE[1:0] | 11b (Sequencer continuously starts new sequence runs) | ||
| STEP_INIT[4:0] | 00000b (Start initial sequence at sequence step 0) | ||
| STEP_x_EN | STEP_0_EN = 1b | STEP_1_EN = 1b | STEP_2_EN = 1b |
| Step x Configuration Pages | |||
| STEPx_AINP[4:0] | 00000b (AIN0) | 00100b (AIN4) | 01000b (AIN8) |
| STEPx_AINN[4:0] | 10010b (Internal AVSS connection selected as negative input) | ||
| STEPx_REF_SEL[1:0] | 00b (Internal voltage reference) | ||
| STEPx_GAIN[3:0] | 0001b (Gain = 1) | ||
| STEPx_CODING | 1b (Unipolar straight binary coding) | ||
| STEPx_NUM_CONV[4:0] | 00011b (Four consecutive conversions per step) | ||
| STEPx_COMP_HIGH_TH[15:0] | EEEFh (2.33V) | Don't care | Don't care |
| STEPx_COMP_LOW_TH[15:8] | D3A0h (2.07V) | AD0Eh (1.69V) | 73B6h (1.13V) |
| STEPx_COMP_NUM[1:0] | 01b (Two consecutive conversions exceeding the threshold trigger the digital comparator) | ||
| STEPx_COMP_HIGH_TH_EN | 1b | 0b | 0b |
| STEPx_COMP_LOW_TH_EN | 1b | ||