Patent US 7,420,486

A system and method for converting analog signals to digital signals minimize the latency of the analog to digital conversion for real-time systems. The conversion system and method implements the hardware of an analog to digital converter input/output (I/O) board and a software-based I/O-driver in an expansion bus. The hardware of the ADC I/O board executes free-running conversion of an analog signal into digital form and stores the converted values in a first level of a buffer having two levels. Previously stored converted values are pushed to the second level of the buffer when a new value is written to the first level. The I/O driver then retrieves stored values from the second level of the buffer when needed by the real-time system and gates the buffer to prevent pushing during retrieval of values from the second level.