Measuring temperature is not always a trivial task. Most sensors used to read temperature transduce the reading to an electrical signal. These sensors provide a voltage level relative to the temperature reading. This voltage is converted to a digital number using an analog-to-digital converter where it can then be processed by a microprocessor or microcontroller. The DS1620 Digital Thermometer from Dallas Semiconductor provides a single-chip solution that reads temperature and converts it to a 9-bit digital value. This data is then read from the DS1620 via a serial interface to a microcontroller (MCU). The device also provides three thermal alarm outputs for thermostatic control.