Electrical – current to voltage converter op amp question

operational-amplifier

I have been given this question and i'm struggling to get my head around it at the moment..

A 12-bit DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) gives an output range of 0
to –1 mA for a digital input word of 0 to 4095. The required output,
however, is for a bipolar voltage range of ±5 V.

(a) Design a current-to-voltage converter circuit to achieve the required bipolar output voltage.

I am guessing that 0mA = +5v and -1mA = -5v, however i'm really struggling to get -5v with the input 0mA, any point in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Best Answer

What you're looking for is a DC offset on your output. You know that for 0 input you want an output of +5 volts, so you'll want +5V on the non-inverting input to get that DC offset. Then you know that you want a gain of (output signal range)/(input signal range) = (10V)/(1mA) which means you'll want a current to voltage gain of 10,000 which will require a 10 kOhm resistor. A simple schematic would look like this:

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

You were a little inconsistent with the polarities of your signals in the questions (is 0mA supposed to be +5 or -5V?) but that's all easy to change. The only thing is you might need an inverting amplifier on the output if for example the DAC can only source current but you want a positive gain. Current to voltage converters have a gain of -Rf.