Universal Smart Sensors Interface and Signal Conditioner

A novel universal smart sensors interface and signal conditioner was proposed and described in this paper. The innovation integrated circuit UFDC-2 is based on four new patented measuring methods for frequency-time domain parameters of signals and solves problem for interfacing of any frequency-time domain sensors and transducers to PC or microcontroller with programmable high accuracy and resolution for frequency (time)-to-digital conversion, non-redundant conversion time, wide frequency range and constant quantization error. Combining silicon micromachining designs and processes with the advanced universal sensors and transducers the interfacing circuit overcomes many of early limitations for single-chip sensors design. By eliminating the need for ADC, the frequency (period, duty-cycle or PWM)-to-digital conversion schemes reduce the systems complexity. The applications of such approach and developed IC are high-performance integrated sensors with truly digital output (RS-232 interface), bus output (SPI or I²C) or IEEE 1451 compatible sensors and transducers.