ADT7518
 
Rev. A | Page 17 of 40 
THEORY OF OPERATION
Directly after the power-up calibration routine, the ADT7518 
goes into idle mode. In this mode, the device is not performing 
any measurements and is fully powered up. All four DAC 
outputs are at 0 V. 
To begin monitoring, write to the Control Configuration 1 
register (Address 18h) and set Bit C0 = 1. The ADT7518 goes 
into its power-up default measurement mode, which is round 
robin. The device then to take measurements on the VDD chan-
nel, internal temperature sensor channel, external temperature 
sensor channel, or AIN1 and AIN2, AIN3, and finally AIN4.  
Once it finishes taking measurements on the AIN4 channel, the 
device immediately loops back to start taking measurements on 
the VDD channel and repeats the same cycle as before. This loop 
continues until the monitoring is stopped by resetting Bit C0 of 
the Control Configuration 1 register to 0. It is also possible to 
continue monitoring as well as switching to single-channel 
mode by writing to the Control Configuration 2 register 
(Address 19h) and setting Bit C4 = 1. Further explanation of  
the single-channel and round robin measurement modes is 
given in later sections.  
All measurement channels have averaging enabled on them on 
power-up. Averaging forces the device to take an average of 16 
readings before giving a final measured result. To disable aver-
aging and consequently decrease the conversion time by a factor 
of 16, set Bit C5 = 1 in the Control Configuration 2 register. 
There are four single-ended analog input channels on the 
ADT7518: AIN1 to AIN4. AIN1 and AIN2 are multiplexed with 
the external temperature sensor terminals D+ and D. Bits C1 
and C2 of the Control Configuration 1 register (Address 18h) 
are used to select between AIN1/AIN2 and the external 
temperature sensor. The input range on the analog input 
channels is dependent on whether the ADC reference used is 
the internal V
REF
 or V
DD
. To meet linearity specifications, it is 
recommended that the maximum V
DD
 value is 5 V. Bit C4 of the 
Control Configuration 3 register is used to select between the 
internal reference or VDD as the analog inputs ADC reference. 
Controlling the DAC outputs can be done by writing to the 
DACs MSB and LSB registers (Addresses 10h to 17h). The 
power-up default setting is to have a low going pulse on the 
LDAC
 pin (Pin 9) controlling the updating of the DAC outputs 
from the DAC registers. Alternatively, one can configure the 
updating of the DAC outputs to be controlled by means other 
than the LDAC
 pin by setting Bit C3 = 1 of the Control Config-
uration 3 register (Address 1Ah). The DAC Configuration 
register (Address 1Bh) and the LDAC Configuration register 
(Address 1Ch) can now be used to control the DAC updating. 
These two registers also control the output range of the DACs 
and selecting between the internal or external reference. DAC A 
and DAC B outputs can be configured to give a voltage output 
proportional to the temperature of the internal and external 
temperature sensors, respectively. 
The dual serial interface defaults to the I
2
C protocol on power-
up. To select and lock in the SPI protocol, follow the selection 
process as described in the Serial Interface Selection section. 
The I
2
C protocol cannot be locked in, while the SPI protocol is 
automatically locked in on selection. The interface can be 
switched back to be I
2
C on selection when the device is powered 
off and on. When using I
2
C, the CS pin should be tied to either 
V
DD
 or GND. 
There are a number of different operating modes on the 
ADT7518 devices and all of them can be controlled by the 
configuration registers. These features consist of enabling and 
disabling interrupts, polarity of the INT/INT
 pin, enabling and 
disabling the averaging on the measurement channels SMBus 
timeout and software reset. 
POWER-UP CALIBRATION 
It is recommended that no communication to the part be ini- 
tiated until approximately 5 ms after V
DD
 has settled to within 
10% of its final value. It is generally accepted that most systems 
take a maximum of 50 ms to power up. Power-up time is 
directly related to the amount of decoupling on the voltage 
supply line.  
During the 5 ms after VDD has settled, the part is performing a 
calibration routine. Any communication to the device during 
calibration will interrupt this routine, and could cause erro-
neous temperature measurements. If it is not possible to have 
V
DD
 at its nominal value by the time 50 ms has elapsed or if 
communication to the device has started prior to V
DD
 settling, it 
is recommended that a measurement be taken on the V
DD
 chan-
nel before a temperature measurement is taken. The VDD 
measurement is used to calibrate out any temperature measure-
ment error due to different supply voltage values. 
CONVERSION SPEED 
The internal oscillator circuit used by the ADC has the capa-
bility to output two different clock frequencies. This means that 
the ADC is capable of running at two different speeds when 
doing a conversion on a measurement channel. Thus, the time 
taken to perform a conversion on a channel can be reduced by 
setting Bit C0 of the Control Configuration 3 register (Address 
1Ah). This increases the ADC clock speed from 1.4 kHz to 22 
kHz. At the higher clock speed, the analog filters on the D+ and 
D input pins (external temperature sensor) are switched off. 
This is why the power-up default setting is to have the ADC 
working at the slow speed. The typical times for fast and slow 
ADC speeds are given in the specifications.