The LTC1290 is a data acquisition component which contains a serial I/O successive approximation A/D converter. It uses LTCMOSTM switched capacitor technology to perform either 12-bit unipolar or 11-bit plus sign bipolar A/D conversions. The 8-channel input multiplexer can be configured for either single-ended or differential inputs (or combinations thereof). An on-chip sample-and-hold is included for all single-ended input channels. When the LTC1290 is idle it can be powered down with a serial word in applications where low power consumption is desired. The serial I/O is designed to be compatible with industry standard full duplex serial interfaces. It allows either MSBor LSB-first data and automatically provides 2's complement output coding in the bipolar mode. The output data word can be programmed for a length of 8, 12 or 16 bits. This allows easy interface to shift registers and a variety of processors.