Why are many voltage references 2.048 or 4.096V

[microbug]

Pretty much what it says in the title. Why is 2.048V so common for voltage references?

[senso]

To use with DAC's and ADC's, so each bit is a nice value, for example, a 4.096Vref with a 12 bits ADC will translate to 1mv per LSB( 4.096/2^12 = 0.001v), if you used a 5v reference each LSB would have a value of 5/4096 = 0,00122

[microbug]

:facepalm: thanks!

[mrkev]

Btw same goes for clock xtals 32,768kHz. It's a nice round number, just in base 2...

[sacherjj]

You also get crystal frequencies like 14.7456 Mhz and 18.432 Mhz instead of 16 and 20, for error free timing on baud rates.

[NiHaoMike]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator_frequencies
That's a big list of common crystal frequencies and explanations of why they are common.

[sacherjj]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator_frequencies
That's a big list of common crystal frequencies and explanations of why they are common.

That is a nice list.  Interesting read.