Interfacing C8051F350 for 24bit ADC

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
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Hi, so I've only ever seen one reference to C8051F350 microcontroller from Silicon Labs here and I've been googling around on it quite a bit.

It's a cheap microcontroller that appears to be quite powerful.
Digikey 1,000 unit price is $5.3 each unit, and if you compare that price to any other 24bit ADC which are more or less $100 or so.

The ADC in this is Delta-Sigma, which probably have limitations to normal ADC's but if you just wanted to measure a voltage (say in making your own DMM) then it should be able to do that.

It doesn't seem like anyone has gotten the idea of using it solely using it for it's ADC, which is what I'm interested in.
That is, writing a C program for it that lets an Arduino "control" it by telling it what ADC pins to read and then transmit the data back to the arduino, similar to how many other passive IC devices work.

Anyone else seen this device and want to share some information? Am I completely wrong about this or is this a valuable source for a good ADC solution (for certain or limited uses)?

Here is the datasheet of the C8051F350 unit.

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if you compare that price to any other 24bit ADC which are more or less $100 or so.

You need to look at other delta-sigma converters, which are slow (100 s/s or so.) For example, there is this part
NAU7802SGI Nuvoton Technology Corporation | Integrated Circuits (ICs) | DigiKey that is about $2.
(search for "sigma")

24bits ought to make you really nervous. That's like 0.000006 % (1 part in 16million); I don't think I can make a PCB trace with that consistent a resistance... :slight_smile: