Programmable Circuit Board Chip

[Ganz]

Hello Everyone,
I'm just starting to get into electronics.
I was wondering if there is a chip that I can program using my computer. I need it to take 2 or 3 analog voltage signals and use them to do a bunch of math (just adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing). And then give an analog of digital output. Does such a thing exist? If you could help me out that would be great!

 

[samovar]

Look here:

https://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/integrated-circuits-ics/embedded-microcontrollers/2556109

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Since your "brand new".

Voltages need to converted into smaller voltaes that the computer can digest. These were mainly 0-5, 1-5, 0-10, 4-20 mA and now 2.5 V FS is common, And sometimes 2.048 v full scale. So, engineeringunits, using an example like temperaure from -32 to 100 deg F has to be converted to a smaller voltage that the A/D (Analog to Digital Converter) can digest.

There are different types of converters: a few examples:
Flash D/A's, not to be confused with flash memory. These convert their input almost instantaneously.
Sucessive approximation
A run of the mill D/A

Because the computer internally is a bunch of zero's and 1's, base 2 plays a dominant role. So, resolution depends on the number of bits. 16 bits can represent 0-65525 or -32767 to +32768 integers. 16 bit converters are not common.

So, for a unipolar signal (say 0-5 V), 1 bit is 5/65535 volts.

So yes, there are unipolar and bipolar A/D converters. The same holds for D/A converters. Going the other way to get a voltage output.

Issues always creap up:
1 - monotonicity - e.g +-1 bit error
2. Linearity - how linear the device is
3. resolution - how much your willing to pay
4. quantization error - harder to describe, but suppose our A/D can only count to 100.
1 unit represents a 50% erro if the value was 1.
As the signal gets bigger, the error gets smaller. This is one of the reasons you see 1-5 converters.

Yes, there are SBC (Single board computers) that you can program and chips themselves. You can also buy external floating point units to do the math more like a PC does.

Integer arithmetic is what the computer does best. A programming Language Library contains the floating point operations. Her is an example floating point unit: https://www.picaxe.com/Hardware/Add-on-Modules/uM-FPU-Floating-Point-Coprocessor/

I'll just point you here https://www.picaxe.com/ for a little introduction. Nattively =, just integer aritmetic. Wan't floating point - you need a co-processor and probably a fair amount of work.

You didn't lay down the entire requirements and I did go through an exhaustive list of options. Usually the microcontroller is programmed in C or BASIC and for die hards that have to the hardware machine language".

For now.

 

[MikeMl]

Another approach: Get a ready-made Data Acquisition Input/Output Interface for a desktop or laptop computer. Some of these plug into a USB. They come with software libraries to do the basic analog input/conversion/analog output. You get to write the code that operates on the data after it is digitized...