4) Programming
4.1) Baseline Calibration
The baseline calibration involves setting the operating modes and temperature gain along with
the coarse and fixed gain and offset.
Setting the operating modes Voltage and/or Current mode, turbo mode, Analog or Digital mode,
Level steering or alarm mode (digital mode only), internal or external temperature sensor, and
Checksum test. The checksum test, if used, should be enabled after all other settings are
complete.
The invert signal bit swaps the differential inputs to the signal path. This has the same effect as
swapping the connections to the VBP and VBN pins of the chip.
Temperature amplifier gain, GNTP, should be set such that the analog converter doesn’t under-
run or over-run at the temperature extremes. When using the internal temperature sensor over
the full temperature span of the device (-40C to +140C) typically a GNTP setting of 2 will work.
When using an external temperature sensor the voltage on the TMP pin must stay within the
ranges as described in the datasheet. The more of the voltage range used the greater the
temperature compensation adjustment range will be.
The coarse gain and fixed gain should be set before the coarse offset and fixed offset. Gain and
offset are inter-related, the offset is multiplied by the gain. It is much easier to program the gain
first then offset. It may be necessary to make some minor adjustment to the coarse offset settings
before adjusting the gain. This is only needed if the output clips at either high end or low end. It
is difficult to precisely calculate the offset and gain values. The amplifier circuitry within the
chip uses resistors implemented in silicon. These resistors have around a 20% tolerance, thus the
gain and offset will vary from chip to chip. Each chip is tested to provide a gain and offset
adjustment capability within a specified range. For calculations a typical value can be taken.
4.2) Temperature calibration
The temperature compensation capability of the 90308/90314 is piece-wise with first order
compensation in each segment (gap). The compensation is based on the difference between the
current digitized filtered temperature and the appropriate temperature point. The equations have
been previously described. The first temperature gap is slightly different than the other three.
The first gap uses the temperature difference between the current temperature and the T1
temperature point (the upper end of the temperature gap). The second temperature gap also uses
the T1 point for determining the temperature differences (the low end of the second gap). The
third and fourth gaps also use the temperature point at the low end of their gap. This means that
MLX90308CCC & MLX90314AB Software Users Manual
Rev 2.0
19
11/28/01