Programmable Gain Amplifiers

Programmable Gain Amplifiers (PGAs) are a special type of amplifier that have fixed gain levels. The desired gain level is determined by the digital interface such as Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) or Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C). PGAs find their applications in driving Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs), analog multiplexers, data acquisition, industrial instrumentation, test equipment, and medical instrumentation. The benefits of PGAs are high gain accuracy and the flexibility of using one PGA in place of several Instrumentation Amplifiers (INAs). Microchip Technology offers a number of PGAs.

MCP6S2X PGA Evaluation Board features the MCP6S21/91 and MCP6S26 devices. The PGA devices are interfaced to a PIC16F676 providing a versatile selection of input channels and gains to evaluate device performance. The board supports multiple input signal sources and two devices are cascaded to produce a gain between 1 V/V and 1024 V/V.