Digilent Analog Shield

Welcome to the resource center for the Analog Shield!

Here you will find all the reference materials that Digilent has created for this board, as well as links to any external content we have tracked down.

The Analog Shield was created in collaboration with Stanford University and the TI University Program and is manufactured by Digilent Inc. Its origins begin with Dr. Gregory Kovacs, professor at Stanford University, who wanted to capitalize on the successes his students were having with the Arduino and use that as a bridge into the world of analog electronics. Partnering with the TI University program, his student, Bill Esposito worked with TI engineers to create a shield that could convert an Arduino board into a powerful mixed signal prototyping system. Professor Kovacs has used this powerful combination to teach his students fundamental concepts such as:

1. Quantization and sampling
2. Direct digital synthesis
3. Analog noise vs Digital noise

…and more.

Key parts on the shield

• ADS8343: 16 bit, 4 channel Analog to Digital converter
• DAC8564: 16 bit, 4 channel Digital to Analog converter
• Variable 7.5V bipolar power supply
• Fixed 5V bipolar power supply
• Solderless Breadboard

Supported Boards

• chipKIT Uno32*
• chipKIT UC32*
• chipKIT Max32*
• chipKIT WF32*
• Arduino Uno

The Analog Shield is a low cost digital signal processing Shield designed to work with the Arduino UNO and chipKIT line of microcontroller boards. It was created in collaboration with Stanford University, the TI University Program and Digilent Inc.

The Analog Shield is designed with TI analog technology that provides up to 4 channels of 16-bit analog signal input and output. Also on board are integrated fixed +/-5V and variable +/- 7.5V power supplies.

• Schematic – PDF
• Reference Manual – Wiki Page PDF
  • The Wiki page may have more up-to-date information than the PDF
• Sell Sheet – Sell Sheet currently unavailable, please see the reference manual for product detail
• Library – zip Github

• Download A collection of Instructables tutorials prepared by Stanford for the Analog Shield. Intended for Arduino™ users.
• Download This library provides optimized functions to quickly read and write analog signals to and from the Analog Shield on the Arduino UNO and several chipKIT boards. The included demos illustrate how to collect and replicate analog signals with varying sample rates.

Arduino

• Direct Digital Synthesis Function Generator github link
• FFT Sectrum Visualizer github link
• Polyphonic Music Player github link
• Lissajou Demo github link

• Digilent Forum