A multichannel minimum-seeking analog-to-digital converter

A special-purpose analog to digital (A/D) circuit using medium-scale integration ICs on a printed circuit board is developed. The circuit determines which of the eight input analog signals is the lowest and provides an 8-b magnitude and 3-b address output of this minimum input signal at a 0.5-MHz conversion rate. The circuit utilizes a successive approximation register, adder registers, CMOS D/A (digital/analog), parallel comparators, and a priority encoder connected in closed loop. Control is accomplished using simple flip-flop logic. Several important signal-processing applications are mentioned for this circuit as a feedback component in optical and electronic systems, utilizing associative self-organizing memory.< >