Discrete sampling of continuous biological signals: analog-to-digital conversion

Computer processing of many electrophysiological events requires analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) of the time-varying signal. Inadequate ADC sampling rates affect the accuracy of amplitude and latency measurements and introduce rate-limited errors. A second class of errors, termed limited-precision errors, result from the limitation imposed by the word size (in bits) of the ADC. Total error is the sum of rate-limited error and limited-precision error, but can be controlled and specified as described here. Given the critical nature of ADC parameters, a standard is proposed for describing ADC performance.