Temperature to voltage converter measures remote diodes with 1°C accuracy

Many low voltage systems today rely on temperature to assess overall system health and reliability. Traditional implementations require a series of filters, a precise reference and a current source, resulting in a complex conversion scheme prone to inaccuracies if not carefully designed. According to Linear, the LTC2997 is a simple temperature monitoring solution that measures a remote diode's temperature with +/-1°C accuracy or local temperature with +/-1.5°C accuracy and outputs a voltage proportional to absolute temperature. It is designed as a precise, space saving, micropower temperature monitoring solution. It is suitable for applications such as system thermal control, energy harvesting, desktop and notebook computers, network servers and environmental monitoring. Two current sense inputs can be configured to measure either local or remote temperature. A built in algorithm cancels the errors due to sensor series resistance when measuring a diode or transistor voltages. A 1.8V voltage reference output is also available to share with an external a/d converter or for generating temperature threshold voltages to compare against the VPTAT output. The LTC2997 is offered in commercial, industrial and automotive versions, supporting operating temperature ranges from 0 to 70°C, -40 to 85°C and -40 to 125°C, respectively.