What is the signal resolution of the TEK-803 ion input channels?
The incoming analog ion signal from the mass spectrometer enters the analog-to-digital (A2D) circuitry within our interface electronics. Once there, an autoranging input circuit of different gain ranges (x1, x10, x100) determines the best gain channel for the signal. For instance, signals below 100 mV are amplified by the x100 channel, signals between 100 mV and 1 V by the x10 channel, and signals above 1 V by the x1 channel. The “preconditioning” amplified signal passes through a 16 bit A/D (65535 points) convertor and is numerically scaled to represent the original incoming signal. Therefore, the system has a input dynamic range of 1 : 6553500 counts on a single sample reading allowing digitizing of analog values down to around 1.5 µV (10 V full scale input / 6553500 points).
