The 28608B and the 28618 input stage is a high impedance balanced differential input topology that may be used to receive differential signals from a bridge type transducer or to condition grounded (single-ended) voltage sources without introducing ground loops. The input is versatile in that it has low DC drift for DC measurement applications, low noise for wideband AC measurements and is equipped with programmable AC/DC coupling. AC coupling is useful for eliminating large DC bias on the signal so that more channel gain can be applied in order to emphasize small AC fluctuations in the signal.

Some transducers such as piezo-resistive pressure transducers can have very high resonant frequencies that can be excited by transient events and this out-band signal can be larger than the signal of interest. Sources of unwanted low frequency noise can exist such as engine sub-harmonics, triboelectric noise from cable whip or pyro-electric noise from the sensor caused by the large temperature gradients.

The 28000 amplifier gain is distributed as “pre-filter” and “post-filter” gain to allow the filter to remove out-band signals such as transducer resonance while still achieving the required full-scale in-band signal level. Using the 28000 “reserve” feature, the user can specify the required protection against out-band noise and the pre- and post-filter gain are automatically distributed to provide this protection. The pre-filter gain is set to achieve the required amplifier headroom for the out-band signals prior to the filter while maximizing dynamic range. After the filter removes the out-band signals, the post-filter gain is set to achieve the desired full-scale output.