Prosig Signal Processing Blog

Notes, tutorials, news and articles on digital signal capture, processing, techniques and applications

April 14, 2008

WHAT ARE dB, NOISE FLOOR & DYNAMIC RANGE?

By James Wren, Application Engineer, Prosig

TitleMost engineers are probably familiar with or have come across the decibel or dB as a unit of measurement. Its most common use is in the field of acoustics where it is used to quantify sound levels. However, as will be explained in this article, it is also useful for a wide variety of measurements in other fields such as electronics and communications.

One particular use of dB is to quantify the dynamic range and accuracy of an analogue to digital conversion system. This applies to Prosig’s P8000 range of data acquisition hardware where the noise floor, dynamic range and resolution are all specified in terms of dB. read »»»

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