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Radical views on THD

Efficient battery
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Hewlett Packard 3562A Dual channel dynamic signal analyser Hewlett Packard 8116A - 50MHz Pulse,Function generator £2250
64pHz -100KHz Hewlett Packard 1660A-136 channel Logic Analyser £3995
Hewlett Packard 8505A •13GHz •Network Analyser £5500 Keytek MZ•15,EC Minizap ESO Simulator (15ky -hand held) £1750
Hewlett Packard 8756A/8757A Scaler Network Analyser £1995 Marconi 10666 - Demultiplexer & Frame Alignment Monitor (140MBIT to 64KB1T)
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Hewlett Packard 8591E 9KHz-1 8GHz £1500 Leader 3216 Signal generator 100KHz -140MHz -AM ,FM/CW with built in FM stereo
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IFR A7550 -10KHz-1GHz -Portable £3250 Rohde (4 Schwarz NRV dual channel power meter & NAV Z2 Sensor £1250
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Fax: 02476 650 773
 • h. L.
433 COMMENT 469 NEW PRODUCTS
New product outlines,
Smetinn:,2 more than avirtual future?
edited by Richard Wilson

435 NEWS 480 JLH A LIFETIME IN

• Scottish microdisplay initiative
• IBM chips go athird faster
ELECTRONICS
John Linsley-Hood recalls the
• Maps on your mobile phone
emergence of the IC and his first
• Mobile-mast caution
experiences with PLLs, the synchrodyne
• E-mail phone
and cassette recorders.
• Copper IC processing

438 [Link]... 486 A NEW 100W

[Link] have become such a CLASS-B TOPOLOGY
constant source of fun and amusement In aconventional Class-B amplifier,
that we will never be able to take them distortion rises with frequency. But it's
seriously again David Manners reports. at higher frequencies, where the ear is Photography :Mark Swallow
most sensitive, that you want the best
440 THD IS MEANINGLESS performance to suppress the undesirable
Looking at audio amplifiers from an RF influences of cross-over switching.
designer's perspective Anthony New Russel Breden believes his
argues that THD figures are "irrelevant, reconfiguration 100W Class-B design
irrational, and completely spurious." So solves that problem.
what's the alternative?
492 BECOME A
448 RS232 RADIO LINK
Control equipment in a50m radius TRAPEZIUM EXPERT
There's any number of circuits for
around your computer using Pei An's
generating square, sine and triangular
wireless RS232 data link. Transmitted
waveforms, but how often do you see a
data packets have aunique address for
circuit for producing trapezium
directing them to any one of 1024
waveforms? Anthony Smith explains
remote receivers.
not only how to make trapezoidal
waveforms, but also reveals why they
456 CIRCUIT IDEAS can be so useful. 1.1 Sae a

• Simple phase-sensitive detector

• Two transistor audio-visual alert
• Mains flasher
499 CALIBRATOR FOR
• Multichannel amplitude discriminator 4-20MA INTERFACES Marker \

• Alternative neon tester After reeling at the price of acalibrator 2000000 MHZ
V., -60 94 dB
• Simple FM broadcast receiver for 4to 20mA loop interfaces, Darren
5.)
Heywood decided to look into designing 4.1 1.1

his own.
460 EFFICIENT BATTERY
POWER SUPPLIES 502 WEB DIRECTIONS nu. 1411.11, '. 11111e

Cyril Bateman shows how important Useful web addresses 'Res MY VIM IItélr Wi II am

subtle capacitor parameters are in As ameans of judging an audio amplifier's

gaining maximum efficiency from performance, THD is pretty useless argues
battery-powered regulators. 505 LETTERS Anthony New. So what's the alternative?
Audio power analysis, Easily-bared Find out page 440.
ends, Photodiode sensing, In defence of Are [Link] companies faking the
privatisation, Domestic thermocouples, mickey out of the financial world? David
Blumlein. Manners says they are, on page 438.

466 BEGINNERS' CORNER

Having come across electronics students
that had had no experience of making
and troubleshooting electronic circuits,
Ian Hickman decided to show them
how. Here's where he began.

July issue on sale 2 June

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 4;1

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Experrment, Ideas for DrDAQ

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Simply plug DrDAQ into any Windows PC, run the supplied ✓ Outputs for control experiments
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Tel: 01480 396395, Fax: 01480 396296, E:mail: post@ [Link], Web: [Link]

CIRCLE NO.106 ON REPLY CARD

ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 Something more than a virtual future?
EDITOR The UK electronics industry is making auelcome remember that the gosernment put amere L3m into its
Martin Eccles return to apractice it was once particularly good at. three year Microelectronics in Business (MiB) electronics
That is manufacturing ground-breaking products. This design programme.
020 8652 3614
news that the industry is returning to its manufacturing Such is the relative size of the government's new
roots could not have come at amore opportune moment. manufacturing initiative that some of the civil servants
CONSULTANTS
The electronics sector has been dragged into the much- are worried that the achievements of the MiB programme
Ian Hickman
hyped [Link] stock market investment phenomenon. will be dwarfed and forgotten in comparison.
Philip Darrington
That's good news for those individuals lucky enough to This is great news for UK electronics. At last the
Frank Ogden find themselves turned into an over-night millionaire«on government has realised that it must tackle the skills
the strength of astock market flotation. But it is not doing shortage and opportunity bottleneck at the manufacturing
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATION much for the longer term strength and competitiveness of end of the high-technology revolution.
Jackie Lowe the electronics industry as awhole. Another established electronics manufacturer. Marconi
020 8652 3614 Indeed the more thoughtful entrepreneurs in the is investing £40m in anew graduate and engineering
Cambridge start-up belt fear that the credibility of the skills programme in partnership with Cambridge
EDITORIAL E-MAILS high-tech start-up could eventually be damaged by the University.
[Link]@[Link] misplaced faith of ill-advised City investors in the Microsoft, Rolls-Royce and AT&T have all invested in
[Link] phenomenon. The good news is that behind all Cambridge University, and last year British Aerospace,
the smoke and mirrors created by [Link] mania there another big engineering trainer in the 1970s, launched
GROUP SALES EXECUTIVE
are encouraging signs of something more permanent plans for its own "engineering university".
Pat Bunce
growing in the grass roots of the industry's For so many years the firms have been warning and
020 8652 8339 about the shortage of skilled designers, but few were
manufacturing sector.
Just before Easter an Oxfordshire-based firm Bookham prepared to make the sort of financial commitment
ADVERTISEMENT E-MAILS Technology was valued at £2.9bn in its initial public needed to address the issue.
[Link]@[Link] offering (IPO) on the London Stock Market. Nothing too What is significant about Marconi's collaboration and
surprising about that in the current climate, except that investment in Cambridge -University is that it shows one
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION Bookham is an electronic component manufacturer. major electronics employer is prepared to do something
020 8652 8339 Bookham's value as abusiness is based on atechnique about the skills shortage.
for manufacturing low cost opto-electronic components What makes the initiative all the more impressive is
PUBLISHER used in optical fibre communications networks. It is not that Marconi is unlikely to see any tangible return on its
Mick Elliott surprising that agroup of UK-based engineers should investment for three, maybe five years.
come up with aworld-class semiconductor component You can have all the [Link] flotations you like, but if

EDITORIAL FAX technology. Tony Blair wants to encourage new industries to create
However, it is surprising that aUK-based start-up has the wealth once taken for granted from industries like
020 8652 8111
actually made asuccess of manufacturing its products car-making and ship-building then he must rebuild some •
and is selling them to blue-chip multinationals around the industrial foundations for the high-tech sector. That
CLASSIFIED FAX
world. What is even more surprising is that the City means being able to manufacture the electronic products
020 8652 8938 which spring from the innovative ideas being produced
investors have recognised the potential in acompany like
Bookham Technology, without being frightened away by like crazy on the regional science parks.
NEWSTRADE ENQUIRIES At different ends of the corporate scale that is exactly
the inevitably high up front investment required for any
020 8261 7704 new manufacturing operation. what companies like Bookham Technology and Marconi
Even the Financial Times pointed out that Bookham are doing.
ISSN 0959-8332 Technology, despite making aloss this year. has amore It would be foolish to believe that manufacturing is
solid under-pinning than many recent high-tech stock fashionable again. Too much has been done in this
market launches. country in the last 20 years to undermine that belief. The
Investing in electronics manufacturing is along term digital revolution continues to be driven by fabless design
venture and happily it is starting to happen once again in house like ARM and IPO obsessed [Link] individuals.
the UK. But at least Bookham's successful market flotation and
For a full listing of Another recent example of this 'grass-roots' investment this latest manufacturing initiative from the government
RBI magazines: is particularly pertinent and welcome. The government is signals that the rebuilding of the UK's electronics
[Link]
to put £40m into anew electronics manufacturing manufacturing industry is well on the way and is entering
collaborative programme between industry/universities. anew phase of optimism.
The scale of this investment is obvious when you Richard Wilson
REED
BUSINESS
glW INFORMATION

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June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 433

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CIRCLE NO. 107 ON REPLY CARD

 up DATE
Scottish microdisplay initiative could see
the UK featuring in the bigger picture
Scottish universities are aiming to Possible partners at a glance
put asolid academic base under the
UK microdisplay industry. • University of Edinburgh —LCD microdisplays since the early eight-
The proposed initiative is called
ies.
CUPID, for Combined Universities
• Napier University —chemistry of LCD and light emitting polymers,
Participating in Displays. "The
and optical assessment.
group forming CUPID is essentially • Heriot-Watt University —applications of display and the interface
on the East Coast of Scotland, but architecture.
we are hoping to make it aUK-wide • University of Abertay Dundee — human factors and performance
initiative," said David Vass, characteristics
Professor of applied physics at the • University of Dundee —amorphous silicon field emitters.
University of Edinburgh, "We are
keen to promote the UK
microdisplay industry." technology-based research projects: higher than existing PDAs and other
At the moment there are five ergonomics. "One of the major conventional mobile information
universities expressing interest. advantages of is the human factors devices.
"We are all speaking to each other, element," said Vass. Industry interest in microdisplays is
although we do not have aformal Microdisplays, displays under such that the Society of Information
agreement yet," said Vass. The 25mm across, offer away of displays, an international
universities are: Edinburgh, Napier, presenting highly detailed visual organisation, is making them the main
Heriot-Watt, Abertay Dundee and information to mobile users without theme of its 2000 conference.
Dundee and the aim is along term the bulk of conventional displays. Microdisplays take many forms.
collaboration. "The idea is to bring Optics focus the image in such away Specifically CUPID will be looking
together expertise in microdisplays that when the display is held, or at "Active backplanes driving LEDs
over the next 10 to 15 years," said worn, close to the eye, the image fills or light-emitting polymers, based on
Vass. the visual field in the same way a standard semiconductor processing,
Among these, Abertay brings large TV does. which can be obtained from various
experience sometimes overlooked in Usable resolution can be far ASIC foundries," said Vass.

IBM chips go athird faster on low-k

IBM Microelectronics is to boost its atechnical specialist at IBM.
chip speeds by afurther 30 per cent Licensed from Dow Chemical, the
when it starts using alow-k low dielectric constant material has
dielectric next year. akof 3, significantly better than
The material is used as an that of FSG, the most common
insulator between layers of metal material used today, with akof 4.
interconnect in achip. A lower The first process to use the
value for kmeans reduced material is called Cu-11, which uses
capacitance between wires, leading copper for interconnect (see page
to increased speed and reduced 46). Using 0.13µm lithography, the
crosstalk. process will result in transistor
"It's avery large improvement channel lengths down to 0.08µm.
compared to what most people use "Right now it's in
which is FSG," said Michel Rivier, pre-production," said Rivier.

Maps on your mobile?

Welcome medicine for sick mines... The Japan Alliance of
Humanitarian Demining Support (JAHDS) has presented the
HALO Trust with equipment specifically designed to support
Yeoman group, the mobile navigation tion offering," said Vincent Geake,
mine removal efforts at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Mine Eye
firm, has entered an agreement with Yeoman's chief technical officer.
was ajoint development by companies including sensor-
Ordnance Survey to co-develop Yeoman also said it has made an
designer Omron. lAHDS was started by Hiroshi Tomita after
standards for mobile navigation unsolicited offer for UK firm Laser-
he discovered that 'butterfly' mines in Angola were
systems. Scan of one new Yeoman share for
deliberately shaped to entice children to play with them.
Yeoman said it is developing an every Laser-Scan share with acash
operating architecture for mobile alternative of 42.9p per share. Laser-
navigation systems, which should Scan has developed software to both companies because their tech-
allow consumers access to map support amapping database. nologies in the area of mobile naviga-
databases via WAP phones. "The Yeoman board believes that tion and geographical information are
"This is asignificant step towards the enlarged group will significantly complementary," said Yeoman in a
reaching acomplete mobile naviga- enhance value for shareholders of statement.

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 435

NEWS

,
Scotland urges mobile-mast caution
The Transport and Environment scientific evidence of ahealth risk, but an option.
Committee of the Scottish Parliament it believes the level of public concern Similar recommendations could soon
has recommended that aprecautionary justifies aprecautionary approach. appear before the UK government. A
approach regarding health issues This would mean schools, hospitals report from asimilar inquiry is
should be adopted when siting mobile and residential areas would be expected to be presented any time now
phone masts. considered unsuitable sites. by the Independent Expert Group on
If its recommendations are accepted It also wants the environmental Mobile Phones.
then full planning control would be impact to be more carefully The group was set up to look at
introduced for masts. considered, with initiatives such as concerns about the health effects of
In its 'Inquiry into mast and site sharing used. The mobile phones, assess existing research
Telecommunications Developments' possibility of requiring anational and give advice based on that
report admits there is no conclusive roaming agreement to he made is also knowledge.

Amstrad rings in the e-mail phone Solutions waiting

Amstrad has finally unveiled the mass-market for a problem
Internet product which the company has been European electronics companies are
working on for over ayear. flocking to join intellectual property
The 'e-m@iler' is intended to bring e-mail to Web site [Link].
the mass market without the need for aPC. The Started in February by 30 US
unit was developed in collaboration with BT and firms, yet2 is ashop window for
consists of aphone unit with keypad and LCD intellectual property that companies
screen. have invented, but have no use for.
The unit can send and receive e-mail, holds up The most recent additions from
to 700 contact details and has automatic e-mail Europe are BT, Bosch, Philips
notification and collection. It also provides a Electronics and Siemens, together with
digital answering machine and fax facilities. Japan's Toshiba.
"I see the e-m@iler becoming the all-in-one "Large corporations are sitting on
communications centre' in the home. It is the huge and growing reserves of great
blockbuster product Amstrad has been working ideas that never see the light of day or
on for the last eighteen months and which the are used once only and never again,"
market has been waiting for," said Sir Alan said Chris de Bleser, CEO of
Sugar, Amstrad's chairman. [Link].
The e-m@iler is being sold at asubsidised US founding sponsors of yet2
price of £79.99 and is apparently available in the include 3M, Dow, DuPont,
High Street already. Honeywell, Polaroid, Rockwell and
TRW.

Doubts cast over benefits of copper IC processing

Using an all-layer copper process 0.15pm generation of process. layout," said Chiang, "you ha %eto
to make achip showed 'no According. to the main optimise the design to take
difference' in performance proponents of copper processing, advantage of the copper process."
compared to the same chip made in IBM and Motorola, copper gives an Accordingly, Chiang believes:
aluminium, says TSMC's top added performance advantage of 20 "We do not expect avery large
scientist. per cent over aluminium because of demand for copper until the 0.13pm
The finding could affect the copper's lower resistivity. process when customers have learnt
widespread use of copper Asked if TSMC had made how to optimise their designs to
processing for the upcoming demonstrator chips to compare the use copper."
performance of copper with Copper processing has been
aluminium, Dr Shang -Yi Chiang, promoted by IBM as the answer to
Engineers' pay settlements vice-president for R&D at TSMC, limitations in traditional aluminium
replied: "A customer who ordered processing. Motorola is in the
hit by strong pound copper saw no difference in forefront of copper processing and
performance." licensed its process to Chartered
hngineering pay settlements have remained at a Dr Chiang emphasised that the Semiconductor of Singapore.
historically low level of 2.4 per cent for three months in process involved, which was AMD says it will use copper
arow. TSMC's 0.15pm all-layer copper processing on some layers of its
The latest survey findings from the Engineering process, did not use low-k Athlon microprocessor. Although
Employers' Federation (EEF) shows that nearly one in dielectrics. TSMC's low-k Intel has dubbed its latest
eight settlements were pay freezes in the three months dielectrics process is currently in generation of microprocessors
to the end of February 2000. product qualification, which is due 'Coppermine' it does not use
The EEF said this situation is due to the continuing to be completed in June. copper to make them and has said it
high level of sterling. "Also, the problem was that it does not think it will use copper
was the same design — the same until the 0.13pm generation.

4th ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 r
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MULTIMETER-
TRANSIENT RECORDER-

•The sophisticated cursor read outs have

21 possible read outs. Besides the usual
read outs, like voltage and time. also
quantities like rise time and frequency
are displayed.

• Measured signals and instrument

settings can be saved on [Link]
enables the creation of a library of
The HS801: the first 100 Mega samples measured signals. Text balloons can be
per second measuring instrument that added to asignal. for special comments.
consists of a MOST (Multimeter, The (colour) print outs can be supplied
Oscilloscope, Spectrum analyzer and with three common text lines (e.g.
Transient recorder) and an AVVG (abritary company info) en three lines with
waveform generator). This new MOST measurement specific information.
portable and compact measuring
instrument can solve almost every
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integrated AVVG you can generate every maximum sampling speed of 100 MHz.
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volt full scale. The record length is
32K/64K samples. The AVVG has a 10 bit
The versatile software has a user-defined resolution and a sample speed of 25
toolbar with which over 50 instrument [Link] HS801 is connected to the
settings quick and easy can be parallel printer port of acomputer.
accessed. An intelligent auto setup
allows the inexperienced user to perform
measurements immediately. Through the The minimum system requirement is a
use of a setting file, the user has the PC with a486 processor and 8 Mbyte
possibility to save an instrument setup RAM available. The software runs in
and recall it at a later moment. The setup Windows [Link] /95 /98 or Wndows NT
time of the instrument is hereby reduced and DOS 3.3 or higher.
to a minimum.
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When aquick indication of the input Cambridgeshire. PE17 4VVJ, UK
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-.[Link]-
CIRCLE NO. 108 ON REPLY CARD
[Link]...
[Link] have become such a constant source of fun and amusement that we
will never be able to take them seriously again. David Manners stifles his giggles.

N
ot since Screaming Lord Sutch have we helped create lastminute's high public profile in the
had so much fun as we're having with the months preceding the launch.
Smirk at those who [Link] companies. The founders are not the innocent young techies
ramble on about His late Lordship took the mickey out of the operating from agarage of an earlier generation -
political world; the [Link] are taking the mickey lastminute's founders are highly articulate, well-
[Link] fortunes - out of the financial world. funded Oxford graduates with well-honed skills in
Seeing solemn money-men trying to add their making sophisticated financial presentations.
often the same ones
patina of logic and justification to the dottiness of Venture capital -once jealously hoarded by high-
who talk about the [Link] world is hilarious. In future they are tech start-up companies for innovative product
going to find it hard to convince us of the authority development -tends to be spent by [Link] mostly
house prices. Giggle of any of their analyses. on publicity rather than on developing aservice or a
at the discomfort of The only rational explanation for the [Link] product.
phenomenon is that they resurrected the greed/fear Some of the [Link] companies are spending on
life-long frenzies of the past: 'Tulipmania' in the 1630s, publicity at the rate of £1m amonth —the money
money-grubbers when Dutchmen paid the price of ahouse for atulip coming from venture capitalists wanting to make a
bulb; the South Sea Bubble of 1720; the 1849 Gold quick killing through an early public offering on the
seeing youngsters Rush; the 19th century boom/bust in railway shares; stock market.
the 1970s Australian Mining Boom led by Poseidon The message of the venture capital-backed
making instant shares; the 1988/9 UK Housing Boom; Japan's [Link] founders is usually simple —grab the IPO
fortunes. Ridicule 1980s 'Bubble Economy' when Tokyo land prices money and run.
were so high that the Imperial Palace's gardens For all those who are not overwhelmed by the
the moans of those were worth more than the State of California. fear/greed frenzy of the [Link] phenomenon, it can
who didn't get In all these greed/fear frenzies, the fear of being be afun thing to watch.
left out made people take leave of their senses and Smirk at those who ramble on about [Link]
shares, or enough buy pigs-in-pokes at crazily-escalating prices, and fortunes —often the same ones who talk about house
greed made people over-borrow to buy assets they prices. Giggle at the discomfort of life-long money-
shares, in the latest could not afford, gambling on massive profits from grubbers seeing youngsters making instant fortunes.
IPO. These Sad Acts the expected price rises, and ruining themselves Ridicule the moans of those who didn't get shares,
and their families in the ensuing crash. or enough shares, in the latest IPO. These Sad Acts
give us a good The same is happening with the Internet and the give us alaugh.
mania to invest in [Link] companies. But, unlike There are, of course, many fine and worthy Web
laugh.
some of the popular frenzies of the past, the [Link] sites, some delivering wonderful things, but the
scenario has acalculated, professional element as venture capital-backed [Link] is often agreedy,
traditional financial interests seek to get their share. flaky beast to be ridiculed and exploited.
We are encouraged to think that [Link] What they are good for is: 1) To make aquick
companies are started by sparky young people with killing; 2) To create an inflated share valuation
nothing except a'good idea'. How far from the truth which can then be used to take over proper
that is. companies with revenues, employees, assets and
One of the backers of the recently floated profits; 3) To exploit their capital-raising abilities
[Link] was Intel, whose PR initiatives to provide useful products and services. •

ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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 "THD is
meaningless"
Looking at audio amplifiers from
an RF designer's perspective,
Anthony New argues that THD
figures are, "irrelevant,
irrational, and completely
spurious." He believes that
intermodulation distortion figures
are far more relevant, and,
unlike THD figures, reflect how
an amplifier 'sounds'. Anthony
also explains what 'IMD' is and
how to measure it.

Ithink Ican explain why the standard definition of 'THD'

is completely meaningless as an indication of what it purports
to measure and how it is utterly irrelevant to the uses to
which it is generally put; Ihave however no idea why the
many engineers with far greater experience of amplifier
design than myself should continue to use the term at all, let
alone attach so much importance to it. Yet they do.
So what are my objections to it? The problems fall into sev-
eral categories.

'Total' harmonic distortion

Firstly, the concept of 'total' harmonic distortion is spurious
because it sums agreat many separate components which are
not equal in kind or effect. Anyone who has experimented
with waveform generation will appreciate that for example,
1% second or third harmonic distortion on areasonably pure
tone has aquite different sound from 1% seventh or ninth
harmonic, and is much less audible, Fig. 1. In fact 1% of sec-
ond or third harmonic distortion is not only not unpleasant
but is sometimes positively preferred by those who like
'valve sound', whereas early transistor amplifiers producing

A
recent article by Ian Hickman showed how to mea- agreat deal less than 1% of higher-order harmonics sound
sure total harmonic distortion, or THD, down to lev- pretty awful on any challenging music.
els below 0.001%. This achievement is worthy of Secondly, of course, many of these harmonics will be out-
applaud for its technical challenges, yet Icannot help mar- side the range of human hearing anyway. It is common prac-
velling at the enormous waste of effort that has been made tice to include distortion figures at frequencies as high as 5or
over the years on such an irrelevant, irrational, and com- 10kHz, but of what possible significance are they? As a
pletely spurious figure as THD. young man Icould (just) hear loud tones as high as 20kHz,
Irrelevant? Irrational? How so? And how can afigure used and found the common TV line oscillator whistle at
so frequently in audio design be spurious? The latter is avery 15.625kHz acutely painful. But Ivery much doubt whether
good question, and one which Ihave not been able to answer. anyone can hear the third or fifth harmonic of a 10kHz tone

440 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 AUDIO

—even aloud one —and certainly not one of amplitude below

1% of its fundamental.
Icontend therefore that the practice of adding all distorting
harmonics together to give asum total, without any weight-
ing factors, is quite arbitrary and not indicative of the audi- -20
bility of any harmonic distortion produced by an amplifier.

amplitude, dB
Since the audibility of agiven THD figure depends heav-
ily on its actual makeup, the figure is also pretty useless even
as apurely theoretical comparison of two or more amplifiers,
since no acoustic model of audibility is included. -60

THD and the ear -80

However there are yet worse flaws in the THD concept
which make the above problems almost academic. These
concern the very nature of harmonic distortion itself.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
In my view one of the central problems with traditional
audio amplifier design is the insistence on considering the frequency, kHz
device as apiece of electronic equipment devoid of any psy-
cho-acoustic considerations. The extreme of this was the con-
cept of 'a straight piece of wire with gain' which is fortu-
nately unattainable, as its gain and bandwidth would make it o
seriously less than optimal and possibly quite unusable in a
real system.
This is not to say Ifall into the 'subjectivist' camp in audio -20
criticism — far from it. Ihave listened attentively to the
amplitude, dB

debates those of this persuasion have had with such luminar- -4(

111111111
ies as Douglas Self and have been mightily impressed with

__
Selfs clear —and seminal —analysis of amplifier distortions.
The problem Ihave with these debates is that neither side -66
seems particularly interested in what the other is saying. On
the one hand we are told 'all the distortions have been cor- -8(
rectly analysed', on the other 'a difference can be heard'.
It seems to me that if these opposing views are to be rec-
onciled the answer must lie at least partly in psycho-acous-
tics, that is —as far as Iam concerned here —the study of how 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
we perceive sounds. frequency, kHz
Idon't claim to any professional qualifications in this field,
but one thing stands out about the current discussion of dis-
tortion in audio systems, namely the lack of any auditory Fig. 1. Subjective audibility of THD: which sounds worse -1% of purely 2nd
model. It is as if in designing seats and seat belts for cars, harmonic distortion as in (a) or 0.5% of mixed harmonics as in (b)? Probably the
nobody was prepared to test ahuman body — or even a latter though its thd specification is better. All the spectra that follow have a
dummy model of one. logarithmic Y-axis (amplitude) and alinear X-axis (frequency) even where this isn't
Ican certainly understand how an engineer is tempted to shown.
subtract the input signal to an amplifier from alinear pro-
portion of its output and declare —by definition —any dif- Fig. 2. Auditory
ference to be distortion. The problem Ihave with the this masking of
view is that, traditional THD testing methods only look at harmonic
one small pan of this difference, and so far as Ican see, har- distortion. (a)
monic distortion isn't perceived by the ear as distortion at all. Typical spectrum
What is the effect to alistener of adding afew percent har- of real signal with
many harmonic s;
monic distortion to the waveform of amusical instrument or
group of instruments? It is to brighten the timbre of the (b) Nominal
instrument. distortion
Since most of the 'distortion' products will already be pre- products at
sent in the undistorted signal, a similar effect may be 0.01% each; (c)
Error products
obtained by adjusting the tone controls. Those of you who
have spent much time siting microphones in the recording - due to frequency-
response non-
linearity on
original signal;
note that these
are on the same
frequency as the
distortion signals
and at much
higher level,
masking the
actual distortion.

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 441

AUDIO

of-the art amplifier distortion could be significant compared

Fig. 3. with it.
Intermodulation The point is, that 'being able to sense adifference' is not
distortion showing equivalent to 'sensing distortion' in any meaningful sense.
the lack of Nor is it an indication even that one of the items being com-
auditory masking. pared is necessarily better or worse than another.
(a) Pure multi- Any real musical instrument — including electronic ones
tone signal at such as keyboards —produce sounds which, when converted
input to amplifier; into analogue electrical signals, contain possibly many dis-
(b) 3rd order ¡MD crete tones. Usually they also contain many harmonics of the
products pro- tones, the relative amplitudes of which strongly influence the
duced by amplifi- 'sound'. The relative levels of these harmonics —both per-
er; (c) Amplifier ceived and measured — vary with many factors including
output signal: auditorium response and the distance between source and lis-
¡MD products are tener. Further factors occur due to the room where the sounds
at different are replayed. Even the shape of the ear itself has an enormous
frequencies from effect, and the presence of hair or hat!
either input tones Consequently, even for aparticular note played there is no
or harmonics, and absolutely 'right' or 'wrong' quantity of any of these har-
therefore not monics. A slight alteration of the levels of these does not cor-
masked. respond to an unpleasant 'distortion' of the sound but to a
slight change in perceived distance, position, or playing by
the instrumentalist.
Furthermore, such slight changes in these levels may be
correctable —or at least adjustable in part —by variation of
the user's tone controls. In addition, the recording engineer
may already have done this to aconsiderably greater extent
prior to or after mixing the output of several microphones.

Frequency response
Ialso contend that in()%t of the apparent subjective differ-
ences that still exist between different audio amplifiers are
not due to distortion at all but to slight differences in fre-
quency response. This point should receive far more attention
during design than it generally does.
Any deviations from aflat response are likely to have a
greater impact on the level of high-frequency harmonics pre-
sent in the amplifier output than the tiny harmonic distortion
products. If noticeable and uncorrectable with tone controls,
these can also contribute to listener fatigue.
The Human ear/brain combination is also very good at cor-
relating impressions over time, so even slight bumps in the
frequency response can become noticeable and even irritat-
ing eventually.
industry will be aware how critical their exact placement is to Since these real-world variations in the levels of asignal's
recording balance —and Idon't simply mean relative loud- harmonics dwarf any likely distortion products in acorrect-
ness. ly operating amplifier of moderately good quality, it seems
You will also be aware of the dramatic change in both sub- perverse in the extreme to use any measure of these tiny 'dis-
jective sound and objective frequency response obtained by tortions' as auseful figure of merit.
alterations in these positions. Even small movements can Ialso note that conventional methods of measuring ampli-
have effects far more noticeable than minute levels of THD fier performance don't really satisfy the traditional definition
in the recording or playback medium. of distortion — output relative to input. Distortion tests use
only a single frequency source and cannot monitor either
Golden ears non-harmonic distortions or frequency-response errors. Also,
It seems quite possible to me that when those with 'Golden the frequency response tests are done differently and are far
Ears' say they can hear a difference with such-and-such less sensitive.
change in the equipment they may be right. For example, when did you last see an amplifier's fre-
When Iwas younger and my ears were sharper Ilistened to quency response flatness specified to 0.01%? Plus or minus
many excellent loudspeakers. Very few sounded as good as 1dB is more usual, which is 12%, and even 0.5dB is still 6%.
alive performance. Ionly heard one —namely the Quad elec- Of what possible significance is the 0.001% harmonic dis-
trostatic —that could actually fool me into thinking the per- tortion of an amplifier when its frequency response con-
former was present in the room. The illusion was so strong tributes an error in harmonic content of several percent?
that Iwas convinced the performer was hiding behind acur- Since the harmonic distortion products will also lie on
tain until Ilooked. existing signal frequencies they will be effectively masked
Even now in any hi-fi demonstration, the difference in from audibility, Fig. 2.
sound between different loudspeakers in the same room —
even those produced by the same company —is so marked as Intermodulation distortion
to make anonsense of the claim that many of them can real- Does this mean that Ijoin the subjectivists in eschewing mea-
ly be 'low distortion' in the 'blameless' sense that Self used surement completely? Not at all. It just means Ifavour using
for amplifiers. It also makes anonsense of the idea that state- asensible measure of distortion instead of asenseless one.

442 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 AUDIO

Fortunately one is conveniently to hand.

Outside of the parochial and fashion-conscious world of
audio, most amplifier designers have long since given up
measuring or even talking about harmonic distortion and use
'Pure' amplifier
instead intermodulation distortion, or IMD for short. input signal
Measuring IMD has three particular virtues over THD. One Distorted
AFoutput
is that, unlike THD, IMD is always ameasure of distortion
to load
in-band. No weighting is needed for audibility at different
frequencies. The second is that it really does degrade per- Amplifier under test.
formance of asystem. It does so regardless of whether it is with non-linearity
measured objectively by such quantities as BER (bit-error
rate), SVE (signal-vector error) or spectral spread or
regrowth, or subjectively by intelligibility of communication.
A third advantage is that unlike the case of harmonic dis- Fig. 4. Producing multi-tone test signals with standard sinewave signal generators.
tortion, intermodulation distortion is quite easily measured by Harmonic output of the generators is not critical. The passive combiner and
standard laboratory equipment, Figs 4, 5. attenuator should not affect the measurement linearity -their IP3 can be measured
At astroke the problem introduced earlier of distortion of in principle by increasing the generator output level beyond It hat the amplifier
10kHz tones is solved. If two tones at, say, 9kHz and 10kHz requires, allowing the effective generator IMD to be calculated at the lower levels
are supplied to agood but not perfect amplifier, it is not the for the amplifier test.
harmonic distortion that is audible but the intermodulation
Distorted
distortion. AFoutput
The non-linearity in the amplifier produces new tones, not to load
present in the original, such as, in this case, IkHz, 81dIz, and
1IkHz, Fig. 6. Although the audibility of IMD depends on Amplifier under test.
the type of music, in general it is much more audible than with non-linearity

any harmonic effects precisely because the distortion pro-

duced is not harmonically related to the signals of interest. 'Pure amplifier
input signal
Intermodulation distortion typically makes music sound
muzzy and indistinct. The worse case of this is usually heard Distortion signal to
1
11 1 spectrum analyser
on old car loudspeakers where the cone is broken or the voice
coil rubs on the pole pieces, but it can be heard in very much
more expensive and well cared-for equipment. Fig. 5. Possible distortion measurement circuit. The attenuator, phase shifter, and
This is the reason why ablameless amplifier must be linear time delay are first adjusted on anetwork analyser to cancel the input signal as well
-the harmonic distortion measured is acomplete red herring. as possible across the whole audio range. This reduces the dynamic range of the
distortion signal for spectrum analysis. The residual input tones also reveal the gain
What is IMD? flatness of the amplifier over frequency, which contributes to the amplifier's output
Although IMD has not been as much discussed in the design errors. The input tones may be swept across the frequency range with aconstant
of audio amplifiers compared with THD, there is aconsid- difference frequency.
erable literature on IMD in general and its application to RF
amplifiers. For this reason, Iwill give asimple overview of
IMD and point out afew implications for its use in audio products with,
design. Inl-Im1=+1
In general, IMD is produced whenever two or more signals
with distinct frequencies F1and F2 pass through adevice - are 'in-band' and of concern; consequently even-order non-
be it an amplifier, filter, or other circuit -that possesses an linearities - second, fourth, etc. -which produce no odd-
amplitude non-linearity of the form, order products are usually ignored.
However in amulti-octave device such as an audio ampli-
Y=A IX+ A2X2+A 3X3+A 4X4+A 5X5+ fier, this restriction will not apply. The most common and
where A1is the nominal gain of the amplifier and the higher usually most important non-linearity is however still athird-
powers of X correspond to the various non-linearities that order non-linearity of the form:
may be present. Ihave ignored phase non-linearities here for
Y=A 0X-F A3X3
simplicity.
This non-linearity produces IMD products at the following which will result in IMD products of third order only, name-
frequencies, ly {2F1-F2,2F2-F1,2F14-F2,and 2F2+Fi}. The first two
represent the classical IMD products and the other two are
nFi+mF2 higher-frequency IMD products, at roughly three times the
where nand m are non-zero integers. Note that if you put fundamental frequencies when these are close together.
[Link], you get purely harmonic distortion rather than IMD, The spectrum of Fig. 6shows these third-order products of
which indicates that harmonic distortion is aspecial case of atwo-tone signal, in addition to higher-level, second-order
amore general phenomenon. products; note that only the third-order products are close in
The order of the IMD products is defined as, frequency to the input tones.
Figure 7 shows an idealised spectrum of four-tone test
k=ln1+1m1 sometimes used with RF amplifiers. If the power input to the
so that the 'third-order' products that often dominate are of device is varied, the output levels of the IMD products will
the form, vary too. This is shown in Fig. 8, from which you can see
that if the input level increases by 10dB, the third-order IMD
F1±2xF 2, F2± 2XFI and 3xF i, 3xF 2 products increase in absolute level by 30dB. Their level rel-
In RF amplifiers afurther restriction often applies. Even in ative to the wanted output signals also increases by 20dB.
many 'wideband' products the overall bandwidth of the If the straight lines are extended to the right you will see
amplifier is less than an octave, and so only those odd-order that they all meet at asingle point. For obvious reasons, this

443
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 AUDIO

o known as the 'output intercept point'. Strictly in this

instance, it is the 'two-tone, third-order output IMD intercept
point' or IP3.
For any signal below this point, the level of IMD products
can be estimated by subtracting the output signal level from
the IP3 to give afigure in decibels, and doubling this to give
afigure in dB?. This represents the IMD relative to the 'car-
rier' i.e. wanted signals, assuming them to be similar in level.

E Real signals
It is highly unlikely that areal device could be operated any-
-80
where near its IP3 point. This point is useful for calculation
and reference only.
-100 Also, areal device is likely to show IMD at other orders,
particularly fifth, when it is driven at all hard. As these will
0 3 10 15 20 25 30
reduce by the fifth power of the signal level instead of the
frequency, kHz third though, they are likely to be lower in level.
However afifth-order non-linearity will also produce some
Fig. 6. Frequency spectrum of two-tone signal showing expected 2nd- and 3rd-order third-order IMD. This may even cancel out some or all of the
products due to intermodulation distortion. The lowest frequency component is the third-order IMD produced by the third-order non-linearity,
'beat' frequency between the tones, the two small components next to the two main resulting in the fifth-order IMD product dominating at some
tones are the 'in-band' 3rd-order components, and the rest are amixture of harmon- output power.
ic and higher-frequency non-harmonic products. In an audio amplifier all these - A similar situation exists for higher-order IMD products,
and more -may be audible for some pairs of tones, though they might be out-of- but the actual levels are generally both lower than third and
band in atypical RF amplifier. fifth-order IMD products and rather less predictable.
When more than two large signals are sent through the
o same amplifier at the same time, the number of IMD prod-
ucts grows rapidly. Figure 9 shows spectra of areal, albeit
RF, amplifier with real multi-tone signals.
-20 Two tones produce two close-in IMD products, in addition
amplitude, dBm

to the other distant ones shown in Fig. 6, but nine products

are visible with three tones, Fig. 9c).
-40
With four tones the number increases again, Fig. 9c1),
though in practice some of these may be co-incident. When

-11
-60 acomplex modulated signal is used rather than aset of CW
tones, the IMD products occupy abandwidth rather like a
noise spectrum.

frrr
-80

..11H
Since these IMD products are not harmonically related to
their causative signals, they behave like noise, too, reducing
the intelligibility of speech or data transmissions to amea-
-100
surable degree. It is not possible to filter them out, since
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
although the bandwidth they occupy increases with their
frequency, kHz order of distortion, Fig. 10, their bandwidth always includes
the original signal.
Fig. 7. Idealised spectrum of four-tone test sometimes used with RF amplifiers: the
four main tones are harmonically related, phase-locked and phase-peaked to maximise So how can IMD be measured?
the peak value of the signal envelope in the time domain. This -in an RF amplifier at As Icommented, one of the benefits of IMD over THD is the
least -is likely to maximise the visible 3rd-order IMD products, particularly the relative ease of measurement due to the distorted products
central one between the two pairs of tones which thus makes an easy frequency being not harmonically related to the original signals.
component to check. With zero IMD this component would be completely absent. A typical setup will consist of apair of signal generators -
or, often, adual-output generator -alinear combiner, pos-
sibly resistive, and aspectrum analyser, Fig. 4. The analyser
Fig. 8. Amplitude response of amplifier displaying 'classical' 3rd-order display will then look something like Fig. 6if the analyser
IMD. Amplifier input signal level is displayed on the X-axis, and output
level on the Y-axis; both axes are logarithmic. The straight line through the 50
origin represents ideal linear response. The straight line at asteeper angle
shows the theoretical level of IMD products, which change three times as
40
quickly with input amplitude as the signal itself. The point where the
straight lines meet is the '3rd-order IMD output intercept point' or IP3.
The curved lines show the likely real characteristics as the amplifier 30
begins to clip, however for sensible operating points well below the IP3
the straight lines are afairly good match for asingle-stage class-A RF
amplifier without any special linearisation techniques. The IP3 concept is 20
also useful for other devices such as mixers which also display IMD. For
any input signal level on the X-axis, the upper line will show the nominal
10-
output level and the vertical separation between the two straight lines
will show the expected linearity in d8c. When high-level multi-tone
signals are concerned this figure -rather than the noise figure -usually o
represents the dynamic range of the signal, since it indicates the relative o 10 20 30 40
level of interfering products. Input amplitude, dBm

444
ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000
 AUDIO

span is sufficiently wide, or like Fig. 9b) in the more usual

narrow-band case.
The IMD products may be much lower in level but are eas-
Decibels, dBm, dBW and dBc
ily seen provided the analyser has enough dynamic range. If It is common to specify amplifier distortion in terms of percentage,
the analyser has appropriate delta markers, the relative dis- with the understanding that voltage ratios are intended. However
tortion can simply be read off the screen display. If not alit- where loudspeakers have to be driven it is power that is more
tle mental arithmetic is required. relevant.
Note that with IMD tests it is not necessary to use espe- For constant-impedance systems with awide signal range a
cially low-distortion oscillators since the harmonics produced convenient logarithmic measure is the decibel or dB. This is
will not normally interfere with the measurement process. strictly aratio of two quantities with the convenient feature that
However the linearity of commercial spectrum analysers is 10dB corresponds to an increase in signal power by afactor of
rarely much better than 80dBc —or 0.01% in voltage terms — ten, and 20dB corresponds to an increase of ten in voltage and ten
and may be poorer. For the best amplifiers some additional in current, making one hundred in power. Specifying an increase
filtering may be needed to notch out the pure signals, or a of 20dB is then unambiguous, regardless of whether the speaker is
coherent subtraction method used as shown in Fig. 5. thinking in terms of power or voltage.
Another test commonly used is the four-tone test illustrat- Where an absolute level is needed, the terms dBm, i.e. dB
ed in Fig. 7. Here, four tones at, say, 3, 4, 6, and 7kHz are relative to one milliwatt, and dBW, i.e. dB relative to one watt, are
produced by four phase-locked generators and the analyser commonly used. In specifying levels of distortion afurther
tuned to look for the missing 5kHz component, which can measure is useful, namely dBc. This refers not to anoise-
only arise from anon-linearity. suppression scheme but to decibels relative to the carrier —i.e. the
main signal.
What figure-of-merit is needed? Where multi-tone signals are present there is however afurther
A figure-of-merit commonly used in RF amplifier design is possible confusion between dBm/tone, dBm mean, and dBm peak.
the intercept point, in dBm, Fig. 8. The higher this is for a
given power level required from the amplifier, the lower will

Fig. 9. Spectrograms of real signals. For convenience these have been taken at RF, though similar spectra could be observed
at audio. (a) 2-tone signal, no visible distortion; (b) 2-tone signal plus obvious 3rd-order IMD; (c) 3-tone signal; and (d) 4-
tone signal. Note that each extra main tone produces many extra IMD products. In (d) the tone frequencies have been
deliberately chosen to make as many products visible as possible; usually several would either overlap or appear to do so
within the resolution of the spectrum analyser. However in acomplex musical signal the large number of signal tones
would cause the hundreds of IMD products to merge into anoise-like background which reduces the clarity of the signal.

A 140 167 bez

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June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 44

AUDIO

Fig. 10. Example 19110 2002 PAH: Second-order non-linearity

Ref 10 dlirn Anee 5dB E4:1 91 de
of areal modulat- The third-order function discussed earlier was selected to rep-
ed signal with Iuy resent atypical amplifier non-linearity. What would happen
IMD -here the III with an amplifier having asecond-order non-linearity?
IMD products are This is arather interesting case study, as it helps to explain
not discernable the difference between 'valve sound' and 'transistor sound'
individually but which used to convey such emotion many years ago and in
serve effectively Marker A some circles still does.
to raise the noise 2 000000 MHz A second-order non-linearity such as that often found in a
level in steps - VIkv. -60 94 dB thennionic valve produces second-harmonic distortion -
la
each step corre- which is not unpleasant in moderation. And it only produces
WI S2
sponds to a 53 FS even-order IMD, namely zeroth and second-order, at low
particular order of level. It produces no odd-order IMD products of the form
IMD. The first (Fit2xF2).
step on each side A narrow-band amplifier produces no in-band IMD at all.
is produced by Thus the absence of any second-harmonic cancellation in a
3rd-order IMD, Comte, 1341 Span 5 Wit class-A configuration has no impact on the IMD present, as
the next by 5th, *Raps OW 30 kHz VOW 3kHz Sweep 69.41 nn suspected by those who prefer this configuration.
the next by 7th, For much of the music program, the loudest frequencies
and so on. Note be the distortion produced, and from this IP3 figure it is quite present in the signal will often be harmonically related. Many
that the IMD easy to calculate how much distortion is'likely at any given of these extra distortion terms, of the form FI±F2,will fall on,
products occupy power level. or close to, existing signal frequencies at much higher level
more bandwidth However at this point Ishould comment that one of the and may be reasonably effectively masked.
than the original many differences between RF and audio amplifiers is that RF Provided the levels of distortion are not excessive the result
signals; the higher amplifiers are usually operated somewhere near their contin- will probably not be particularly unpleasant, and may give the
the order, the uous peak power rating. Alternatively they are at least backed effect of awarm colouration to which one can become accus-
more bandwidth off from this by aconsistent amount. Also, they do not often tomed. Note that this form of distortion reduces markedly as
occupied. The use feedback to achieve good linearity. Consequently, they output level drops, so that soft passages may be portrayed
step pattern might may have an IMD response which approximates to aclassical quite realistically; loud passages are likely in any case to have
however not be curve over most of their useful power range and for which a aricher harmonic texture which hides the IMD more effec-
visible with the single IP3 specification is auseful measure of linearity in any tively.
less-ordered application.¡ In contrast the chief distortion mechanism of early transis-
spectrum of a Where real audio amplifiers are concerned Ifeel that typical tor amplifiers was not large-signal output device non-linear-
typical music responses are unlikely to be so simple over the wider range of ity but crossover distortion. This generally becomes increas-
signal. signal levels encountered, particularly in a'blameless ampli- ingly noticeable at low volume settings.
fier* where all'of the distortion mechanisms have been sepa- Large amounts of feedback were often added to cure this
rately identified and reduced to alow level by various means. and other problems, though the designers perhaps did not
Furthermore audio music signals can have avery high peak- always appreciate how much the loop gain dropped in the
to-mean ratio. It is common practice to specify amplifiers with crossover region. Consequently transistor amplifiers tended to
a power handling greatly in excess of what is normally suffer from less high-amplitude ?ow-order non-linearity and
required. As aresult, much of the time they will be operating more low-amplitude high-order distortion.
at avery small fraction of their nominal power output, where The effect of this on the reproduced sound was quite dis-
the real distortion produced is somewhat different from the tinctive. Gone was the warm coloured but fairly clean sound
'classical' third-order model. familiar to many who hadn't perhaps experienced the best
It is likely, therefore, that rather than asingle calculated IP3 valve amplifiers. Even by the 1960s, these could boast less
figure, acurve of measured IMD levels versus signal level is than 0.1% THD, most of that being the relatively benign low
more appropriate, rather like the waterfall spectrographs some- orders. In its place was acold, muzzy (and sometimes hissy,
times used. It would also give afar better indication of the order but that's another issue) sound which could be particularly
of distortion produced than asingle figure, even an IP3 figure. noticeable in solo piano works. Ithink the worst commercial
Nevertheless the level of intermodulation produced by an design Iever heard was the 'Sinclair 2000', which was pret-
amplifier is, as Ihave shown, absolutely critical to its quality ty, but built down to aprice.
as an audio device. Any useful specification for its linearity It has been said that the unthinking application of negative
should reference this. Itherefore propose that the specification feedback around an amplifier can often merely transform
should run something along the lines of: large amounts of low-order distortion into small amounts of
'Two-tone third-order IMD performance: high-order distortion. It is also true that any crossover-induced
IMD remaining after the application of nfb is still present at
better than -70dBc over 0.1W to 30W and 50Hz to 20kHz'
low signal levels rather than diminishing with volume.
or something similar. In practice, it may be necessary to limit It would have been nice had designers appreciated the futil-
the tests to aset of standard test tones, for example 3.51d-lz and ity of their policy of measuring distortion in terms of THD at
The author Intermodulation products would be looked for at full output. Instead they concentrated in reducing it, albeit
Anthony is an licHz, 2.5, 5.5, 11.5, and 12.51cHz. with some success. To those concerned with measurable
electronics Harmonic products at 71d-lz and 9kFlz might also be present THD, the trade-off seems worthwhile, but the high-order IMD
engineer at but could be due to the signals sources themselves. It would products were usually spread far away in frequency from any
Wireless Systems also be possible to repeat the test at additional low and high masking tones in the signal, and were thus very audible.
International, frequencies to test IMD performance there, such as On complex music containing many strong frequency com-
currently working 350/450Hz, and 15/161cliz. ponents, the large number of high-order products degenerate
on high-linearity Of course modem lab equipment is capable of performing into abackground noise. This noise is signal-dependent and
RF amplifiers for swept measurements and down-loading the results to aPC for hides any subtle details from the ear, Fig. 10. It is no accident
mobile base- analysis and printing, so aswept measurement may be accept- that the 'clarity', often regarded as the highest accolade in
stations. able as astandard. audio, is the direct result of an absence of IM products.

446 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 AUDIO

TIM and other factors In summary

Distortion in phase can also occur in an amplifier that causes Ihave shown here that current testing methodology fails to test the
changes in pulse response; real amplifiers also usually display performance of audio amplifiers adequately in a manner that
some am-to-pm and pm-to-am conversion too. relates to audible performance. It fails to measure what it purports
Ihave deliberately avoided discussion of these since there is to do, namely the difference between arepresentative complex and
considerable doubt whether modest phase effects are audible at time-varying signal input to an amplifier and the actual output
all. However it is less contentious to say that over some of the from it.
audible range at least, differences in phase response between Instead, testing concentrates on an extremely narrow interpre-
channels will at the very least degrade or alter the stereo image tation of 'distortion' that the ear doesn't actually hear as distortion
presentation and are therefore undesirable. at all; it makes no attempt to measure important types of distortion
There is another form of intermodulation distortion that has that certainly are audible; and it does not apply the same rigour to
been discussed in audio design, namely transient ¡MD or TIM. frequency-response issues that it does to THD.
This is the distortion said to occur when apart of an amplifier Tests for load stability are also generally done separately to
suffers slew-rate limiting. For abrief period of time, the ampli- other tests. This is presumably done on the assumption that vari-
fier is unable to follow the input signal at all. During this time ations in loads can't possibly affect other aspects!
the amplifier gain is zero. In my view, any real test of an amplifier should apply arepre-
The usual remedy is to ensure effective low-pass filtering sentative complex signal and compare this with the actual output
prior to any stage that suffers slew-rate limiting. But since the of the amplifier under arange of likely loads. This could be done
event is transitory, the distortion may not show up in steady- in many ways, with real or artificial sources and measured over
state measurements - particularly the continuous-sine wave- frequency or time.
forms generally used in total-harmonic distortion measure- A suitable and relatively simple means exists which is already
ments. used in other fields, namely ¡MD measurement under multi-tone
With asuitable input signal though, (one with ahigh peak-to- conditions. The exact format of these tests could, and should, be
mean ratio perhaps) this should show up in an intermodulation adjusted to maximise their relevance to the particular case of wide-
distortion test. band ultra-low distortion audio amplifiers. These or other mea-
Other test waveforms are often used with amplifiers, for surements should also be capable of measuring frequency
example square waves to show load stability. These may well response to afar greater level of accuracy than is current.
continue to be necessary, though it may be sufficient -and per- When appropriate and psycho-acoustically relevant tests are
haps preferable - instead to measure the IMD performance available, then perhaps we can better assess audio amplifiers
with arange of realistic load impedances, since it is the dis- objectively and better relate their objective performance to sub-
tortion we are primarily interested in. jective tests. •

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lone 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

 radio link
Control equipment in a 50m radius around your computer using
Pei An's wireless RS232 data link. Transmitted data packets have a
unique address for directing them to any one of 1024 remote
receivers.

T
his radio-linked digital data trans- version is type-approved in the UK to encoder converts an I8-bit parallel data
mission system consists of a MPT1340. The 433MHz version is into aserial data. The first 10 bits of
radio transmitter unit and up to type-approved to the ETS300-220 for data represent address and the other 8
1024 receivers each with a unique European use. This avoids the need to bits represent data.
address. The transmitter connects to the submit the final project for approval. The encoded serial data is fed into a
RS232 port of acomputer. Data words The system has a wide range of radio TX2 transmitter, in which the
eight bits wide from the computer can applications in remote control, security, serial data modulates a418/433MHz-
be transmitted to any one of the radio-linked message distribution and carrier signal using the FM modulation
receivers. The maximum communica- personnel paging. scheme. The radio signal is then trans-
tion distance is 50 metres in buildings mitted to the surrounding area through
and 150 metres in open fields. The How it works an antenna, Fig. 2a).
complete system is illustrated in Fig. 1. Parallel-to-serial encoders, serial-to- Inside areceiver unit, the radio signal
FM radio transmitter and receiver parallel decoders, radio transmitters from the antenna is demodulated by an
modules type TX2 and RX2 from and receivers are used in the system. RX2 radio receiver module.
Radiometrix are used. The 418MHz Inside atransmitter unit, the HT640 Demodulated serial data is fed into the
HT648L or HT658 serial-to-parallel
Table 1. TX2 and RX2 radio link module options. decoder, that converts the serial data
Parameters Description Example back to the parallel data (10-bit address
Frequencies 418.00MHz for UK use TX2-418: 5V TX, —6dBm and 8-bit data), Fig. 2b).
433.92MHz for European use TX2-433: 5V TX, 9dBm The address is compared with the
Supply voltages 5V (4-6V for TX2 and RX2) pre-set address of the decoder. If they
3V (2.2V-4V for TX2, 3-4V for RX2) RX2-433-3V match, the 8-bit is placed to the output.
AX data rate -A: 7kHz baseband BW, slow data up to 14kbps RX2-418-A-3V If the address does not match, the
-F: 20kHz baseband BW, fast data up to 40kbps RX2-433-A-3V decoder ignores the present data recep-
tion. As a 10-bit binary data has 1024
possible combinations, the maximum
number of receiver's addresses is 1024.

Transmitter and receiver

Receiver 1024 modules
The radio transmitter and receiver
modules make the digital radio link so
easy to be implemented. They are sur-
face acoustic wave (SAW) controlled
FM radio transmitters and receivers
Up to 1024 receivers specially designed for radio telemetry
and tele-command applications.
Fig. 1. This radio Each module is type-approved to the
data transmission Radio-communications Authority in
design allows one the UK and in Europe. This means that
transmitter to there is no need to submit the project
send an 8-bit data for type approval. For details of UK
Radio signal
to 1024 receivers. MPT1340 and European ETS300-200.
The transmitter Details of the modules are described in
Connected to
connects the COIA or LPT the data sheets in reference I.
RS232 port oía r
,ort ot the PC Transmitter
A variety of TX2 and RX2 modules
PC. 1111111111111111111111111111111 can be used with this design, as you
will see from Table 1.

Transmitter module. Pin functions of

448 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 COMMUNICATIONS

Technical support
the transmitter are given in Fig 3a). For A designer's kit is available
the +5V and 433MHz version, the from the author. It includes
operating voltage ranges from 4to 6V PCBs, components and VB5
DC. At 5V, typical current consump- software. Please direct your
Serial encoded data
tion is about 10mA. to be transmitted enquiry to Dr Pei An, 11
For the +3V and 433MHz version, a Sandpiper drive, Stockport,
supply between 2.2V and 4V DC is Parallel-to-serial
Frequency-modulated Manchester SK3 8UL,
camer signal
needed, with a typical current con- data encoder Tel/fax/answer: 44-(0)161-477-
sumption of 6rnA at 3V. Digital data to 18-bd parallel data
a) 9583. E-mail:
(10 bd address. 8-bd data)
be sent — which should be at CMOS Computer pan@[Link]
logic level at the same power supply interlace
for loading data
voltage — is fed to pin 5. An antenna
connects to pin 2. Figure 4a) is ablock
b)
diagram of the module. LPT COM port
on computer
The transmitter's antenna can be a The same data

helical, loop or whip type, Fig. 5. Of

these, the helical antenna is most com-
pact, but it needs to be optimised for Fig. 2. Elements of the
the exact wavelength in use. The loop RS232 wireless 8-bd data

antenna can consist of aloop of PCB transmitter and Serial Frequency-modulated

track, which is tuned by a variable receiver system. to parallel data .1- 111 camer signal
decoder
capacitor. The whip-type antenna is a
wire, rod, PCB track, or acombination 10-bd preset
address
of them.

Wireless receiver. Figure 3b) gives

the pin functions of the receiver. For a) b
the +5V version, the operating voltage nvn
Sfro

ranges from 4to 6V DC. Typical cur-

rent consumption is about 13mA at 5V.
For the +3V version, the operating ISO non
Podiornieh
voltage is between 3to 4V DC and it 1X2188 hcrerrme Rodiometrix
needs around 13mA at 3.5V. PX2 UHF Receiver
Cim Wang
Received output data at CMOS logic 2.54 rim
OPICM 254 onn
levels appears at pin 7, RXD. Pin 3is a
carrier-detect output. It can be used to 20 32 ern 30 41 nve

drive an external p-n-p transistor to 1aRF god

4 E 14 FIF le
2=RF out
obtain alogic level carrier detect sig- 3= Vcc se 2•RF god
-0-0- -0 -0-0 3» CD
nal. If not used though, it should be 4. DV 0 0 0
400V
5= TXD Sallee
connected to +5V. The block diagram aAF
Sholssol07mmdia 7rased° 7"vee. 7.850
of the receiver is shown in Fig. 4b). pm paean 2.54 men rim scIleng 234 nee
Any types of the antenna previously
described in the transmitter section can Fig. 3. Pin-out of the TX2 radio transmitter and RX2 receiver modules. 418M Hz and 433MHz versions are
be used with this module. available. They are type-approved by UK and European radio communication authorities.

Encoding and decoding

The HT640 and HT648LJHT658 are
CMOS LSI encoders and decoders
designed for transmitting and receiving
digital code, Fig. 6. Typical applica- RF OUT

tions are given in Fig. 7. Details of the

modules are given in reference 2.
ONO
HT640 encoder. The HT640 converts
a)
18-bit parallel data into aserial data. It
transmits the serial data on receipt of a
low-to-high transition at the transmit- VCC
enable pin, TE. The 18-bit data com- lit load 2nd local
prises 10 bits of address, AO to A9, and escalator oscillator CD DETECT

8bits of data, DO to D7.

The chip has an on-board oscillator
Adaptive deem "
that relies on an external 5% resistor
SRN 2nd mix Oldie
connected between pins 10 and 11. It LI
AF IN
Band
Mar
band peu IF amp lompass DATA
AP
demodulator
has awide operating voltage from 2.4V
up to I 2V with atypical standby cur- let mixer

rent of 1µA for a3V supply.

Figure 8a) is a flowchart of the GND 2 CI OND

device's operation. Timing of the b)

encoder is shown in Fig. 9. Initially the
encoder is in stand-by mode. On Fig. 4. Internal block diagrams of the TX2 and RX2 modules.

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 449

 COMMUNICATIONS

receiving aTE signal, it begins athree- The HT648L has latched outputs.
0.5mm diameter enamelled copper wire close wound on 3.2mm dia former word transmission cycle and repeats Valid data appears at the outputs dur-
the cycle until TE goes low. ing avalid transmission, and is latched
MUM • p n 2 (re On
Each word contains four periods: the
pilot code period, synchronisation code
until the next valid transmission. The
HT658 has momentary outputs. Data
418MHz: 26 turns, 433MHz: 24 turns
period, address period and data period only appears at the outputs during a
a, Helical type as shown in Fig. 9b). Logic levels '0' valid transmission and then resets.
and ' I' are encoded as in Fig. 9c). An
open state can be also encoded, but it is UCN5833 serial latch. The
e Pin 2 (RF OUT) not used here. UCN5833A is a 32-bit serial-input
latched driver, Fig. 10. It has 32 bipo-
4to 10cm2 HT648L/HT658 decoder. The lar Darlington open-collector drivers.
1mm wide track
inside area HT648L or HT658 receives the 18-bit Each is capable of driving 150mA with
word and interprets the first 10 bits as amaximum control voltage of 40V.

II
Capacitor 15 -5 pF
• Pin 1(GND)
the address and the last 8bits as data.
When the received address matches the
The IC consists of a data latch for
each driver, two high speed 16-bit shift
decoder's pre-set address, the valid- registers and control circuitry. It is con-
b, Loop type transmission output. VT, goes high and trolled via four CMOS digital input
the 8-bit data appears at the output. lines, which can be driven directly by
The device operates on supplies from outputs from a computer. The maxi-
2.4V to 12V with a typical standby mum data input rate is 3.3MHz.
Wire, rod, PCB track or combination of them
current 0.111A at 5V. Figure 8b) shows Timing for the latch is shown in Fig.
• Pin 2 (RF OUT)
its encoding flow and Fig. 9d) its tim- 11. A serial data bit present at the input
418MHz: 16.5cm. 433MHz. 15.5cm total from RF out pin
ing. Initially the encoder is in stand-by is shifted into the shift register on the
mode. A signal on DIN activates the transition from 0 to I of the clock
C, Whip type
oscillator, which in turn decodes the input. On subsequent clock pulses, the
incoming address and data. registers shift data towards the serial
Antenna performance chart Loop The decoder interprets the first 10 data output. Serial data must be stable
Ultimate performance bits as address and the last 8 bits as at the input prior to the rising edge of
data. Each decoder checks the received the clock input.
Ease of set-up
address twice continuously. If all the Data bits stored in the 32 registers are
Size received addresses match the address transferred into output latches when the
Immunity to proximity de-tuning J of the decoder, the data are output to strobe input is high. The latch contin-
the output pins and the VT pin goes ues to accept new data as long as the
Fig. 5. Three types of antennas can be constructed and used high to indicate a valid transmission. strobe is high.
with the TX2 and RX2 modules -helical, loop and whip. That condition lasts until the address is Data is latched at the high-to-low
incorrect or no signal is received. transition of the strobe. When the out-
put-enable input is low, all the output
a) b) buffers are turned off. When it is high,
the status of outputs is controlled by
AD11 E 24 VDD DI 1 [T 24J VDD Fig. 6. Pin-outs and the contents of the latches.
internal block
AD12 231 AD10 D12 2 23 DIO
diagrams of HT640 Transmitter circuitry
AD13 221 A9 013 3 22 A9 encoder and Figure 12 is the transmitter's circuit
21 1AB 014 4 21
HT648L/HT658 diagram. Three lines from the pc's
A014 AB
decoders. The RS232 port control data loading into
ADI5 20 Al D15 15 20 A7
encoder is able to the UCN5833A. The DTR line controls
AD16 19 A6 D16 16 19 A6 encode 18 bits of the CLK input; RIS line controls the
parallel data into a DATA and TD line controls the
AD17 18 A5 D17 A5

DOUTE! 17 A4 VT re- 171 A4

serial data. The
decoder interprets
STROBE. •
Lines from the RS232 port are
TE ri 16 A3 DIN 19 7
1711 A3 the first 10 bits as clamped to +5V by zener diodes DIto
address bits and the [Link] of the RS232 port, Fig. 14,
OSC2 15 A2 OSC2 10 A2
last 8bits as data and how to use it are described in ref-
OSC1 E 14 Al OSC1 711 At bits. erence 3. It is also possible to connect
vss 13 AO vss 13 AO the transmitter to acomputer's parallel
printer port.
On the UCN5833, OUT1 to OUTIO
supply an address to the encoder and
OUT11 to OUTI 8 supply the data.
Output OUT19 controls the transmit-
enable of the encoder.
All the lines are pulled up to the +5V
supply rail by a101d1 resistor from one
of the resistor arrays, RL I,RL 2 or RL 3.
Contra Logs
Outputs OUT25 to OUT32 are pulled
up by a further 101d1 resistor array,
Treneeneedon Gate Gocue Buffer VT RL4. Output OUT25 switches the
power supply to the encoder and radio
AD10----4017 vD0 vSS
500 VSS transmitter on or off.

450 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 COMMUNICATIONS

a) b) C
Power on

For the HT640 encoder, the value of

Power on
the external resistor is chosen as Stand-by mode
1501d1 at 1%, resulting in oscillation at
200kHz. At this rate, each data trans-
Disable VT 8.
mission takes about 0.075 seconds. No
Data in? ignore the rest of
Power supply to the UCN5833 is Stand-by mode the word

generated by a low power +5V low

drop-out voltage regulator. namely a Address o
TC55RP0052EZB. An LK I15D05 TE enable', matched?

voltage regulator produces the +5V

power supply to the HT640 and the
Store data
radio transmitter.
3 serial encoded data
This regulator has an on/off control words transmitted
Match
pin. When the pin is low, the Previous stored
LKII5D05 switches on the +5V sup- data'

ply. When it is high. the supply is TE still

enabled',
2nd time check
Yes completed',

3 serial encoded data Yes

Transmitter Circuit Twe words transmitted again Latch/momentary output

data to output & activate VT

i Yes
VDD
Address or
Fig. 8. Flowchart of the encoders data error
24
AD11 VOD and decoders. Yes .
23 o-•
0--0 AD12 A10 o •
0-0 22 o-
AD13 A9 O—•
21 o-• a
AD14 A8 0—•—•
0-0 20 o 13-41 TE
re--0 AD15 A7 o--• D12-017
•-0 19 0.-• _bi .‘ word
• 0 AD18 A6
o • Encode 1
18 0-* Data Out _I
AD17 AS
o•—• 14- 3*pda 9.1 1
4- Transrneled
Contnuousty
17 o-•
DOUT A4 o—•
16 o-41 I»
TE A3
o •
mr_ 10 15 o•-•

— Lit LI
OSC2 A2
Rosci 14 o-•
OSC1 A
0--• ft3 [Mt
-4"
2 13 0—
VSS AO
o mil_ Pilot penal _0;4_
777 Sync penod 4 Address code peood - le...1-Data code pendd
(6 brts)

Receiver Circuit Fosc - 33

VDD
One

24
0- 011 VDO
2 23 „ 'Zero'
0-- ID12 010
0 _1 22 0-•
013 A9
21 o-• 'Open'
014 A8 0--•
5 20 0-41 4— Address/Data Bd
015 A7 O0 •
19 o-•
D16 A6 0 •
7 18 0-• Encode 11_
0 -- 017 AS Transmission
8 17 o-• Enable
o- VT A4 _
401 14_ < 1word
o—•
18 o-• Encoder
DIN A.3 Data Out

15 o 0-• 14- 3words HSI 14— jenun

sminesd,y —044- 3 words - $
OSC2 A2 o--• -101 fei F.- 2" doom
Roc11 14 o o--• 4 - 2words -01 2 clocks
-

OSC1 Al
• Decoder VT
12 13 0-.
VSS AO o
o 4- check -0i N-
777
momentary
Data Out
Fig. 7. Typical application circuits for
the HT640 and HT648L/HT658. In the -01 41- 1/2 clock period -1014- 1/2 clock pertod
present application, the radio link is Latched
Data Out
used to transmit data from the encoder
to the decoder. Fig. 9. Encoder timings are shown in a), b) and c) while d) shows that of the decoder.

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 451

COMMUNICATIONS

LOGIC SUPPLY CLOCK

CLOCK SERIAL
SERIAL DATA IN SERIAL DATA OUT DATA OUT
SERIAL DATA IN 32-BIT SHIFT REGISTERS
POWER GND OUTPUT ENABLE

STROBE OUT32
STROBE

OUTI OUT31

OUT2 OUT30 OUTPUT ENABLE

OUT3 OUT29

OUT4 OUT28

OUTS OUT27

OUT6 OUT26 OPEN COLLECTOR OUTPUTS

OUT7 OUT25
b. Internal block diagram
OUT8 OUT24

OUT9 OUT23

OUTIO OUT22
FROM INTERNAL
OUT11 OUT21 Fig. 10. Pin-out, LATCHES
OUT

OUT12 OUT20 internal block

diagram and output
OUT13 OUT19
stage of the
OUT14 OUT18
UCN5833A serial
OUT15 OUT17 data latch.
OUT16 LOGIC GND

a, Pin out C, Output stage

switched off. This scheme is adopted in

Load data bit into shift register
order to save power when the trans-
DATA IN mitter is idle. In this mode, the current
consumption of the board is around
Fig. 11. Timing I.5mA.
CLOCK
sequence of the
serial data latch. Load data to outputs
Receiver circuit details
Three input lines — STROBE Figure 13 is the receiver's circuit dia-
Data in, Clock Turn off transistor
gram. This module receives the trans-
and Strobe —are OUTPUT mitted radio signal from its helical
required to ENABLE I I antenna. Demodulated output is then
control data latch fed into the decoder. For the decoder.
into the IC. OUT L__ the value of the external resistor is cho-
sen as 140kfl at 1%, which gives an
t type &Isms

+5Y 2nd .5V

CO
100nF
C3
Fig. 12. Connector( to 46- RF OUT
100nF I
Pprt !unstop
Circuit D 1YW connector 38
RLI
24 RF ONO

diagram of Vos EN
Our
13
AO
VDO
0.
RI-R3 41,7
the
14
C7.C8 ICOp 0012 A
To &II (0713) o I(
transmitter To pen 7(RIS)
o DATA 2 OUT3
IS
e CS
DATA

unit. The To PIn 3ITD) o

STROBE 4
OUT.
2the
DATA IN
serial data To purS GNDI o
17
7rKle OUTS A4

latch is used C7 C8
OUTS
18
AS
GND

Pins on the
as a RS232 port
19
OuT7 A6
computer D1-03 SOI Zone 2 12 20 Ul
OUT8 Al TX2 Rode tranarnatst
interface and V-
13 21
Ond J5 modulo
OUT9 46
HT640 is the 14 22

encoder. The
OuTIO A
612
SW
transmitter, 15 23
00 IC3
°U ." , OUT11
TX2, 8
NT-640
0— 05111 00712 01
connects to SV *ØI ssell& ad paper
Low swab& on p—
o 35
OuTIO OUT13
2
02
the RS232 34 8 3
o 00129 CUTI 03
port of a OFF ON
19 4
33
OR/OFF o OUT28 CUTIS 04
computer. It ONO
20
o
32
00127 ours
is also
05

31 — 6
possible to CS U(115050 OUT26 OUTI7 06
OS
connect it to OUT25 00116 07
4
61 TE Vs*
acomputer's V•
OUT19

12
parallel port. LED2
RL3
UCN5833A
LC LED

Pull-up ...mops tot outputs ot UCN58.13

816
4S7 OUTIOuT8 are pused up to 2nd .5v so RL I la,

OUT5I-OUT16 ant pulled up to 2nd •SLI by RU. 146

OUT17.0UT24 peed up to 2nd •5+ by 613. 105

00125-OUT32 Oro puled up to V• by 614 101(

452 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 STRAP

.5V

Helical type antenna •

J3

.5V
C3
RI Val.'s] Transmission (VT,
100nF
140k
O DB7

-o DB6
10 e 23 2 3 4 e 7
O DB5
OSC1 2 VT DO DI 02 D3 DO D1 D2 03
RF IN o DB4
9
DATA IN
RF GND 4 O 063
ICI HT.648U658 VCC
0 DB2
ND
AO Al 42 43 44 45 AS A7 48 A9 O DB1

CD 13 la 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 o DBO

Ground

Ground
ONO

6 SW
AF OUT
DATA OUT
62 10k

63 10k
LI I AO AI 48 43 A4 AS AS Al AS A9

5%2 433MHz SW1

1:1
radio receiver ON- OON
ackinkes
Gnd .12V
module OFFal oFF soled«

5V

64
4k7

Fig. 13. Circuit diagram of the receiver unit. RX2 is the radio
receiver and the HT648L or HT658 is the decoder. HT648L gives
alatched output and HT658 gives amomentary output. LC LED

1 2 3 4 5
oscillation frequency of 200kHz. second. During this period, the HT640
The address of the decoder is set by a and the radio transmitters are activated
10-way dip switch. Outputs from the to transmit the encoded data. After this,
decoder and VT line are available from OUT25 is brought high again to stop
.13. A low-power, low drop-out voltage data transmission and to enter power
regulator, the TC55RP0052EZB, pro- save mode again.
6 7 8 9
duces +5V power supply. A demonstration program has been (a) 9-pin male socket viewed from the back of the computer
developed for testing the functionality
Programming of the system using the Visual Basic 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Operation of the transmitter is con- language. This language is supplied
trolled by the DTR, RTS and TD lines with a serial port control called
of the RS232 port. Data bits to be load- 'MSCOMM' that is used to control all
ed are put onto the RTS line and are operations of the serial port.
shifted into the shift register of the In the VB5 editor, if the name of the
UCN5833 at the low-to-high transition MSCOMM control is declared as
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
of DTR, connected to the clock line. 'MSCOMM1', the following com-
(b) 25-pin male socket viewed from the back of the computer
After 32 clocks, 32 bits are loaded mands can be used to control the logic
into shift registers. Next alow-to-high- status of the DTR, RTS and ID lines.
Pin functions of the RS232 connectors
then-low pulse is applied to the TD For details of the MSCOMM control,
25 pin 9 pin Name Direction Description
line, connected to the Strobe line, to have alook at reference 4. (for PCs)
latch the data to the outputs OUT! to To make DTR line high or low, use: 1 Prot Protective ground
2 3 TO Output Transmit data
OUT 32. [Link]=True 3 2 RD Input Receive data
In idle mode -i.e. with the transmit-
or 4 7 RTS Output Request to send
ter not transmitting any data -OUT25 5 8 CTS Input Clear to send
[Link]=False
is at logic high to switch off power 6 6 DSR Input Data set ready

supply to the encoder and radio trans- To make RTS line high or low, use: 7 5 GND Signal ground (common)
8 1 DCD Input Data carrier detect
mitter to save power. A data transmis-
mSComml .RTSEnabled=True 20 4 DTR Output Data terminal ready
sion comprises the following proce- Ring indicator
or 22 9 RI Input
dure. [Link]=False
23 DSRD I/0 Data signal rate detector
Firstly, OUT Ito OUTIO are loaded
with address bits; OUT11 to OUT18 To cause TD line to generate alow-to- Fig. 14. Pins and functions of the RS232 port. In this
are loaded with data; OUTI9 is loaded high-then-low pulse, use: design, TO, DTR and RTS lines control data loading into
with '1' to enable the TE line. the serial-data latch. The COM port bit rate should be set
MSCOMM1. Output= "0 "
to 9600 baud, 8data bits, 1stop bit and no parity bit.
Next, OUT25 becomes low for 0.2

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 453

COMMUNICATIONS

Examples of how to use 'MSCOMM' play units. Because of the addressing

Rai Forml control are given in List 1. capability, it would also be possible to
Radio Digital Data transmission The user's screen of the demonstra- set up aform of paging system.
1024 addresses, 8-bit data tion software is shown in Fig. 15. Finally, Iwould like to thank Mr
Send byte to areceiver From that screen, the user specifies an Kangyan from Radiometrix Ltd for his
address and a data byte to be sent. help with this design. 11
Address (0-1023) FC"---
Clicking 'Send data' causes the trans-
mitter to transmit the data to the speci-
Data (0-255)
fied receiver. If the 'Start testing' but- References
Send data ton is pressed the specified receiver I. Data sheets for TX2 and RX2 are
outputs asquare wave signal. The peri- available from Radiometrix Ltd.
ods of high and low state are deter- Tel: +44 (0) 20 8428 1220.
Output square wave
mined by the interval — which is a Web site:
Interval (>500ms] ¡50111 value bigger than 500ms. Click 'Stop' [Link]
to stop testing. 2. Data sheets for HT640, HT648L
Start testing I Stop I and HT658 are available from
Application ideas Holtek. Web site:
Exit ¡I In a remote control application, the [Link]
eight digital outputs from the receiver 3. PC Interfacing —Using Centronic,
could control lights, heaters, motors, RS232 and game ports, Pei An,
Fig. 15. User screen of the demonstration software, which etc., using mechanical or solid-state Newnes, Butterworth-Heinemann,
allows you to send an 8-bit data word to areceiver specified relays. 1998, ISBN0240514483.
by the address. If the 'Start testing' button is clicked, asquare In an information distribution or mes- 4. Real-world programming with
wave signal will be produced at the outputs of the specified sage display system, it would be possi- Visual Basic, Anthony T. Mann,
receiver unit. The periods of logic high and low are ble to send a message to particular SAMS publishing, 1995,
determined by the value of 'Interval'. groups of receivers with their own dis- ISBN0672306190.

[Link] • outbuf ..0 to switch off power to the redi ,

End Function transmitter
List 1. Demonstration program for the [Link] Val([Link])

wireless RS232 link in Visual Basic. Private Sub Commandl_Clicki) If [Link] < 300 Then [Link] = 300
Dim Addressmab As Byte, Addresslab As Byte, i As Byte [Link] = [Link]
Function loaddata_1(dataA As Byte. dataB As Byte. dataC .UCN5833, Outl to Outil . address bits [Link] = True
As Byte. dateD As Byte) 'UCN5833, Outll to 18 . data bits End Sub
'Load 4 byte. (8 bite) into the UCNXX 'UCN5833. Out19 = Transmit enabled
'DTR = clock. CTS = data, TX = strobe 'UCN5833, Out25 = power ON Private Sub Command4_Click()
'if UCN5833/32 is used: [Link], output low (transis- 'Control of MT640 (4 steps): [Link] = Pelee
tor on). ' Load data into UCN5833 End Sub
.RTS=falee, output high (tranaistor off) ' Power ON
Dim i As Byte ' Enabled TE Private Sub Form_Load()
'load Port D ' Disable TE Com_number
For i = 1 To 8 Do
[Link] . 1 - (data)) And bitweight(9 - i)) Addressmab Val([Link]) \ 256 Com_number (InputBox5( . Input 1,2.3 or 4 to select. ,
O bitweight(9 - i) Addresalab [Link]) - Addresamsb Chr(13) & COM1, CON2.COM3 or CON4 -. • .
[Link] = True For i = 1 To 8 port . ))
[Link] • False DataBita(i) = (Addresslsb And bitweight(i)) \ If Com_number Then End
Next i bitweight(i) Com_number Val(Com_number)
'load Port C Next i Loop Until Com_number os0
For i 1 To 8 DataBite(9) (Addressmsb And bitweight(1)1 \ [Link] = Com_number
[Link] = 1 - (dataC And bitweight(9 - ill bitweight(1) [Link] = 1
O bitweight(9 - i) DataBite(10) (Addresemeb And bitweight(21) O [Link] = comInputNodeBinary
[Link] . True bitweight(2) [Link] = False
[Link] . False For i . 1 To 8 [Link] = True
Next i Dotal/tell° • i) = (Val([Link]) And bitweight(i)) bitweight(1) . 1: bitweight(2) = 2: bitweight(3) . 4:
'load Port El O bitweight(i) bitweight(4) = 8:
For i = 1 To 8 Next i bitweight(5) = 16: bitweight(6) = 32: bitweight(7)
[Link] = 1 - (dataB And bitweight(9 - i)) to_transmit 1 .to transmit 64: bitweight(8) = 128:
\ bitweight19 - i) power_on . 1 'to power on End Sub
[Link] True DataBit.(19) = to_transmit '.1 to enable TE. =0 to dis-
[Link] . False able TE Private Sub Timerl_Timer()
Next i DataBite(25) = 1 - power_on '.1 to power the radio Dim i As Byte
'load Port A transmitter For i = 1 To 8
For i = 1 To 8 ..0 to switch off power to the radio DataBits(10 • i) = 1 - DataBita(1Q o i)
[Link] = 1 - (dataA And bitweight(9 - i)) transmitter Next i
O bitweight(9 - dummy = loaddata_2 to_transmit = 1 - to_transmit
[Link] . True Sleep (200) 'a short delay for sending the data (18 power_on = 1 - power_on
[Link] = False bit.) DetaBite(191 = to_transmit ..1 to enable TE, .0 to dis
Next i save_power able TE
'Strobe data into UCN serial latch IC End Sub DetaBite(25) = 1 - power_on ..1 to power the cadi:
Sleep (20) transmitter
[Link] = .0 . Private Sub Command2_Click() ..0 to switch off power to the radio
End Function [Link] False transmitter
End dummy = loaddata_2
Function loaddata_2(I End Sub Sleep (200)
Dim outbuf(1) As Byte save_power
'Load 32 bytes into UCNXX Private Sub Command3_Click() End Sub
outbuf(1) = 255 done . robe
For i = 1 To 32 Addresamsb = Vel([Link]) 0 256
[Link] . 1 - DataBits(33 - i) Addre681»b = [Link]) - Addremsumb
[Link] = True For i = 1 To 8
[Link] . False DataBite(i) (Addreaslab And bitweight(i)) \
Next i bitweight(i)
Sleep (20) Next i
[Link] • outbuf DataBits(9) (Addressmsb And bitweight(1))
End Function bitweight(1) List 2. [Link].
DataBite(10) = (Addresemsb And bitweight(2)) . bitweight(8) As Byte
Function save_poweri) bitweight(2) .,_obal done As Boolean
Dim outbufil) As Byte For i • 1 To 8 Global dataA As Byte, dataB As Byte. dataC As Byte.
'Load 32 byte. into UCNXX DataBite(10 • i) = 1 date] As Byte
outbuf(1) = 255 Next i Global DataBit.(32) As Byte
For i • I To 32 to_transmit = 1 'to transmit Global Com_number A. Variant
[Link] . 0 power_on . 1 'to power on Declare Sub Sleep Lib . kerne132. (ByVal dwMilliseconds
[Link] . True DataBit.(19) to_transmit ..1 to enable TE, .0 to dis- As Long)
[Link] = False able TE
Next i DataBits(25) . 1 - power_on '=1 to power the radio
Sleep (20) transmitter

454 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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Electronics Products -on the cover of this issue comprises
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The ceramic they are made from is a high-temperature
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Transmitter— TX3 This evaluation system can Range offacilities

• Crystal-locked PLL, FM be used to evaluate a TX1 or • Range & Target
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TX2 or TX3 transmitter
• Operation from 2.2V to 10V • Interference
module together with
@ 10mA Identification
snatching RX1 or RX2 or
• Built-in regulator for • Antenna Evaluation
RX3 receiver or a BiM
improved stability and supply • Transient Analysis
¡nodule.
noise rejection • Communication Eye
• OdBm (lmW) RF output Diagram
• Linking external
Receiver -RX3 The TX3 and RX3 are hardware directly or via
• Single conversion FM miniature UHF radio on board Radio Packet
superhet with SAW front end transmitter & receiver Controller
filter modules designed for PCB
• Operation from 2.7V to I3V mounting. They allow the
@ 9.5mA Contact:
simple implementation of
• Built-in regulator for Radiometrix Ltd
data links at speeds up to
improved stability and supply
50kbps and distances up to 4Hartcran House
noise rejection
30m in-building or 120m over Gibbs Couch
• 50kb/s, -100dBm sensitivity
open ground. Watford WD1 5EZ
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• RSSI output with 75dB range
Tel: -1-44 (0)20 8428 1220
Fax: +44 (0)20 8428 1221

[Link]
CIRCLE NO.110 ON REPLY CARD
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 455
 IDEAS
Fact: most circuit ideas sent to
Electronics World get published
The best circuit ideas are ones that save time or money, or stimulate the thought process. This
includes the odd solution looking for a problem —provided it has adegree of ingenuity.
Your submissions are ¡udged mainly on their originality and usefulness. Interesting
modifications to existing circuits are strong contenders too —provided that you clearly
acknowledge the circuit you have modified. Never send us anything that you believe has been
published before though.
Don't forget to say why you think your idea is worthy.
Clear hand-written notes on paper are a minimum requirement: disks with separate drawing
and text files in a popular form are best —but please label the disk clearly.

Two transistor FM broadcast receiver

"T his simple FM radio receiver uses only two the frequency being determined by Land C1.
Itransistors. They function as alow-power oscillator, When the frequency of oscillation is the same as that of
the wanted signal, the recovered audio is available at the
output. The audio signal is dc blocked by C2 and fed to
+3V
an audio amplifier.
10k Ra¡ik Gorland
C2 200n
D98
1—e. Audio

This circuit was so intriguing that we had to see if it

L: 4118SWG on worked. It does. Thanks to Ian Hickman for trying it
4mm air core
out. Ed.
Cl: 2 -14pF
trimmer

Winner of the second

BF797
National Instruments
(D98)
digital multimeter worth
This synchronised oscillator recovers the audio from a over £500
broadcast FM station.

Simple phase-sensitive detector

+15 (C40) -r11c XRL3600 is a advantage of using this device is its
transconductance op-amp with simplicity, since the CR low-pass
linearising diodes and buffer, similar filter to suppress the carrier
V2 5k i 1On
+15 to the LM13600. It can be used as a frequency ripple and its harmonics
=Asincot modulator or audio range mixer. can be added 'inside' the op-amp, so
5,7 Here, it is shown connected as a that no other op-amp is needed. The
phase detector, the output being cut-off frequency too of the low-pass
proportional to I/2cos8. The filter is wo= Vim-, where wo should
Out be much less than 2w, the frequency
-cosS of the input signals.
This phase-sensitive detector can be Kamil Kraus
\I 510 used as amodulator or audio-range Rokycany
=Asin(cot+8) mixer and, having only one op-amp, Czech Republic
—15 it is easy to implement. C40

456 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

(National Instruments sponsors Circuit Ideas
National Instruments is awarding
over £3500 worth of equipment
for the best circuit ideas.
Once every two months throughout 2000,
National Instruments is awarding an
NI4050 digital multimeter worth over
£500 each for the best circuit idea
published over each two-month period. At
the end of the 12 months, National is
awarding aLabVIEW package worth over
£700 to the best circuit idea of the year.*

About National Instruments NI4050

National Instruments offers hundreds of software and
The NI 4050 is afull-feature digital multimeter (DMM) for hand-held and
hardware products for data acquisition and control, data
analysis, and presentation. By utilising industry-standard notebook computers with aType II PC Card (PCMCIA) slot. The NI 4050
computers, our virtual instrument products empower users in a features accurate 51/
2 digit DC voltage. true-rms AC voltage, and resistance

wide variety of industries to easily automate their test. (ohms) measurements. Its size, weight, and low power consumption make it
measurement, and industrial processes at afraction of the cost
ideal for portable measurements and data logging with hand-held and notebook
of traditional approaches.
computers.
Software
Our company is best known for our innovative software • DC Measurements: 20mV to 250V DC; 20mA to 10A
products. The National Instruments charter is to offer a • AC Measurements: 20mV rms to 250V rms; 20tnA nits to 10A nus;
software solution for every application, ranging from very
• True rms, 20Hz to 25kHz
simple to very sophisticated. We also span the needs of users.
• Up to 60 readings/s
from advanced research to development, production. and
service. Our flagship Lab VIEW product, with its • UL Listed
revolutionary, patented graphical programming technology, • 511
2 Digit Multimeter for PCMCIA

continues to be an industry leader. Additional software

products, such as LabWindows/CVI, Component Works.
Lab VIEW
Measure and VirtualBench, are chosen by users who prefer C
programming, Visual Basic. Excel spreadsheets, and no
LabVIEW is ahighly
programming at all, respectively. productive graphical
programming environment
Hardware that combines easy-to-use
Our soft are products are complemented by our broad
graphical development with
selection of hardware to connect computers to real-world
signals and devices. We manufacture data acquisition
the flexibility of apowerful
hardware for portable, notebook, desktop, and industrial programming language. It
computers. These products, when combined with our offers an intuitive
software, can directly replace awide variety of traditional environment, tightly
instruments at afraction of the cost. In 1996 we expanded our
integrated with measurement
high-performance E Series product line in PCI. ISA and
PCMCIA form factors, shipped our first VXI data acquisition
hardware, for engineers and
products, and added remote (long-distance) capabilities to our scientists to quickly produce
SCXI signal conditioning and data acquisition product line. solutions for data acquisition,
Our virtual instrumentation vision keeps us at the forefront data analysis, and data
of computer and instrumentation technology. National
presentation.
Instruments staff works actively with industry to promote
international technological standards such as IEEE 488,
PCMCIA, PCI. VXI plug&play, Windows 95/NT, and the • Graphical programming development environment
Internet. More importantly, we integrate these technologies • Rapid application development
into innovative new products for our users. • Seamless integration with DAQ, GPIB, RS-232, and VXI

•All published circuit ideas that are not eligible for the prizes detailed here
• Full, open network connectivity
will earn their authors ominimum of £35 and up to £100. • Built-in display and file I/O

National Instruments —computer -based measurement and automation

National Instruments, 11 Kingfisher Court, H‘unbridge Road, Netsbury, Berkshire, RG14 551. Tel (01635 523545), Fax (01635) 52439.i
[Link] [Link].

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 457

 CIRCUIT IDEAS

R1
Tr, (C56) Two-transistor AV alert
KL303E

Adescribed
simple audio-visual alerting circuit is Working in conjunction with C2, the value
here. of R1determines the duration of the sounds;
cl Such acircuit can be arranged using an R2 defines the pause between them.
10µ injection field transistor, but these are no Capacitor C2 provides the characteristic
longer common items. Instead, the 'beeper' colouring or the sound. The circuit uses a
shown emulates an injection field transistor 40S-1low resistance phone. At asupply
with the combination of an n-channel FET voltage of 6to 15V, average current con-
and ap-n-p transistor. These provide a sumption is 1.5mA.
current-voltage characteristic with anega- Mickael Shustov
This beeper/blinker operates using a tive dynamic resistance. Switching on the Tomsk
simulated injection field transistor. beeper generates short synchronous sound Russia
and light signals. C56

TO LAMPS Frugal flasher

Two transistors and an SCR form areliable replacement to thermally-
Iactivated switches used for lamp-flashing. Unlike many similar
circuits, this one needs no high-power resistors or high-voltage
P0102D capacitors.
400V 800mA SCR
Timing is provided by loan and lkû resistors with acapacitor. Best
performance is obtained with acapacitor from 470 to 1000µF and with
the resistor over the emitter and collector of BC327 set at around 12k.Q.
For proper operation it is essential to use an SCR with avery sensitive
gate. If you are unable to find one, you can use triacs such as the
TIC206M rated at 600V, 4A. Note that you will still need the diode
bridge.
Flavio Dellepiane
Genoa
Italy

Multichannel amplitude discriminator

Aengineering
mplitude discriminators are used in The circuit shown uses aUAA180 to by an electrolytic capacitor and applied
measurement systems, direct asignal to one or other of to pin 2of the UAA180.
to route signals into separate channels, several separate outputs, depending Upper and lower limits of the 12-step
on the basis of amplitude. The amplitude upon its amplitude. indication range are set by
of asignal is easily enough indicated by The input is connected to the inputs potentiometers connected to pins 3and
multi-comparator chips driving of twelve CMOS analog switches, and 16 of the device, the drop across two
LEDs, such as the UAA170/180, also to avoltage doubler type rectifier silicon diodes setting the minimum
UL1970N/80N, A277DI etc. circuit. Resultant dc level is smoothed range which can be set.
The UAA180 indicates the level of

(C57I £50 Winneri 12 xLED

+
r
the signal present by lighting the
appropriate LED. Via one section of
two hex inverters, it also closes one of
DAI
the analogue switch sections, routeing
A 3xGe
nevo
/ / / // / the input signal to the corresponding
21.,2 15k* output channel.
6V2 47k
In addition, the device can form the
• 4_

basis of amultichannel analogue quasi-

UAA180
10k 2xSi
• • filter, by introducing afrequency-to-
12 12 x1k
voltage converter'. By summing the
output signals via controlled dividers
2k you can synthesise amultiband
2 /2
This circuit directs equaliser, to realise arejecter circuit,
asignal to one of bandpass or other filter.
100n
several outputs, Mickael Shustov
10k
according to its Tomsk
\ amplitude. Russia
2xCD4049
2k C57
, 12

13 12
2 10
U12
Reference
100n 01 >
U2 I. Shustov M. A. Application of
polycomparator chips in engineering of
INPUT 1-4 3xCD4066 radio communications,' Radioamateur
(Byelorussia), 1997 No 6pp. 13-15.

458 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 CIRCUIT IDEAS

Warning
Alternative neon tester Do not use this circuit as prescribed here
by its author, i.e. do not use the circuit t
tis important that )ou read the of remotely registering the presence test the mains or any other potentiall
Iwarning panel on the right before of high-frequency fields of high
lethal voltage source.
going any further. strength, e.g. fields of transmitters,
This idea is an alternative to the horizontal sweep transformers, etc. • The idea is fine, but the circuit is n
traditional screwdriver mains tester Mickael Shustov isolated. If the 510ka resistor fails, t
incorporating aminiature neon Tomsk circuit immediately becomes lethal if U
indicator in its handle. It uses a Russia on mains and high voltages. Ed.
complementary pair of transistors C55
connected as amultivibrator.
When the 510k probe touches a •„
220V live line, acurrent not (C55) poiLED
exceeding 400pA charges the
capacitors via the bridge rectifier, 250n
1k2
510k
returning through the user (sensor). Phase
The device then begins to generate
short flashes of light and sound
401
impulses (clicks), at afrequency of 1M6 Tr,

up to five per second. NPN

Using high-frequency diodes and •

an antenna, connected instead of the
510k12 probe, the device is capable Alternating voltage tester with audible and visible indication.

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June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 459

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

Efficient battery
power supplies
Using the battery-powered regulator he designed for his tard meter,
Cyril Bateman demonstrates how important subtle capacitor
parameters are in gaining maximum efficiency.

T
he ever increasing demand for Switching alternatives There's more on this in the panel enti-
small, lightweight and efficient With increasing load current, battery tled, 'Batteries'.
battery powered equipment has life using a linear regulation system Iexperienced this problem first hand
resulted in an explosion in the number becomes unacceptable, and aswitched- when designing the +5V switched-
and variety of dedicated power supply mode alternative becomes essential. mode power supply featured in my
integrated circuits. Many of the latest While new battery technologies are tana meter circuit'. In this design, the
and most efficient designs are only now available, many designers choose LT1303CN8 integrated circuit 2 boosts
available in minute surface mount to use AA-sized alkaline cells when the battery voltage just enough to
packages. These encourage designers their load cannot be supplied using a enable the transistor linear regulator to
to use physically small capacitors and PP3 type. To ensure acceptable battery provide the required +5V output.
inductors, which can have high losses. life with a5V supply, four such cells Using this circuit as an example, I
Portable equipment that doesn't need may be needed in series. will demonstrate to you the change in
alot of current can be provided with a Generating a+5V stabilised supply transient voltage levels that Imeasured
stabilised +5V, or lower, rail using from four AA batteries poses the diffi- using different capacitors in the CI,C2
only alow drop-out linear regulator, a culty that with fresh batteries, the cir- and C3 positions, Fig. 1. These mea-
decoupling capacitor and aPP3 battery. cuit must reduce the battery voltage. As surements illustrate the importance of
If required, a negative supply can be the batteries discharge, the circuit must careful component selection.
produced using a charge-pump con- automatically change over to boosting A switched-mode power supply
verter. the battery voltage. draws 'pulses' of current from the bat-
Provided the required current is Capable of very high efficiency, the tery. This intermittent current creates
small, this combination provides alow switching process takes current from transient voltage drops due to the inter-
noise, low first-cost system and accept- the battery supply in bursts. Batteries nal resistance of the battery, the
able battery life. However, the con- possess internal resistance, so these 'reversed battery' protection diode, the
ventional alkaline PP3 size battery, typ- current pulses impose fast transients on switch and circuit wiring. These
ically rated at 550mAh, exhausts very the supply voltage and result in signif- momentary voltage drops generate sig-
quickly when providing the 50mA that icant output noise levels. These tran- nificant noise, degrading power supply
may be needed to support an efficient sients may be minimised by choosing regulation and battery life, Fig. 2a).
±5V supply at 20mA. the capacitors and inductors carefully. These current peaks can be min-

+5v
Batt • DI
Fig. 1. Switched LaH Z1578813

mode power supply

used in the tanti R2
300K
Ulm
meter. For clarity LBO

the shutdown timer 100

and low-battery SHDN .C2 C3

RS
indicator have been
, 5e0ur
Cl 100K LTI303CN8 Cl
F 220uF FB
removed. In this Batt -
111, SONO POND 2112 e e

article, circuit Ul
v
performance is —11
- 0v
studied using three
different capacitor 2112 Stabi Iised 5 vo It supp Ig
combinations for C1,
input T RR Batteries
C2 and C3.

460 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

imised by using an input storage capac- track routeingsl. This revised PCB, 037 types. The 47pF 50V and the
itor, C1,adjacent to the switched-mode together with its loon load, was used 220pF 10V capacitor case sizes were
power supply integrated circuit. This with three capacitor combinations, to 6.3mm by Ilmm.
reduces and smooths out the peaks of provide the oscillograms and measured Efficiency was slightly improved; the
current demand, the battery then sup- results used in this article. To avoid supply current measured 80.1mA. The
plying amore steady current into this variations in battery performance, the LT1303 chip has changed mode, now
capacitor. circuit was powered from my bench producing three transient bursts per
Other capacitors are needed to act as supply, set to 4.5 volt. oscilloscope cycle. Using the same 'Y'
reservoir, C2, and perform smoothing, Ichose this voltage for two reasons. oscilloscope settings for each capacitor
C3, following the power supply switch- First it is the median usable voltage reference as for Fig. 2, the transient
ing rectifier and the linear regulator. from four AA alkaline batteries.
Fig. 2. Ripple
Values and voltages required for Combined with the small voltage
waveforms
these capacitors depend on your chosen dropped in the 'reversed battery' pro-
together with
power supply integrated circuit. Most tection diode, it ensures the power sup-
superimposed fast
data sheets recommend makers' part ply works only in its 'boost' mode.
transient voltage
numbers, as well as capacitance values Using two 47pF, 50V 037 capacitors
spikes, measured
and voltage rating. Unfortunately many for CIand C2, with a220pF, 10V 037
using Philips 037
of these specific devices are not easily for C3, the supply drew 86mA. Output
capacitors.
obtained in the UK -especially in the was [Link], giving 51mA into the 100f1
Capacitors Cy
smaller quantities needed for prototype load. The circuit was noisy with exces-
and C2 were 47pF
development. sive output ripple voltages. Fig. 2.
50V with 220pF
In this series of plots, to ensure the
10V for C3.
Effective capacitors very fast transient spikes can be seen,
For a+5V, 100mA output supply using the Y amplifier settings for C1, C2 and
a) CIripple
4AA batteries, the LT1303 data rec- C3 differ, but were kept consistent with
voltage is 0.32V
ommended capacitor types and values change of capacitor, by capacitor ref-
pk-pk, transient
which were not immediately available. erence. I used 200mV/cm for C1, spikes are 1.14V
They suggested 33pF for C1 and C2 100mV/cm for C2 and 50mV/cm for
pk-pk.
with 220pF for C3. C3. In each case my 250MHz oscillo-
b) C2 Ripple
For many years my stock capacitors scope probes were switched to divide voltage is 0.36V
have been chosen from the Philips 037 by 10. Switched to unity, most of this pk-pk, transient
sub-miniature general purpose type and fast transient detail was missing. spikes are 0.38V
the company's 135 low-impedance, The LT1303 IC features 'burst- pk-pk.
high-ripple ranges [Link] small capaci- mode' operation, adapting its switching
C) C3 Ripple
tors needed for this power supply are speeds to suit circuit conditions. For voltage is 0.12V
not available in the 135 style. each photo, the X time base was set to pk-pk, transient
5ps/cm. spikes are 0.25V
A worked example To obtain astable trace for aphoto-
pk-pk.
Using 47g, 50V and 220pF, 10V graph, the actual sweep rate was
Philips 037 radial-lead aluminium elec- slowed using the vernier control.
trolytics, I assembled a prototype Hence the trace speed was not con-
Fig. 3. With
power supply. Powered from four AA trolled. The important point here is the
conditions set as
batteries and using a 100f1 resistive change in peak transient and ripple for Fig. 2, these
dummy load, this prototype was noisy voltages with change of capacitor. The photos show the
and inefficient. Y scaling is consistent for each capac- marginal
Iredesigned the PCB to decouple the itor number. improvement
noise input to a capacitor from its I then replaced both 47pF 50V gained by
smoothed output, using four-terminal capacitors with two more 220e, 10V substituting
220pF, 10V 037
capacitors for Cl
Table 1. Measured parameter values for one sample of each
and C2. Nominal
capacitor style only. capacitance is
Unit/parameter 10kHz 30kHz 100kHz 300kHz 1MHz much increased,
47pF/50V but ripple and
Philips 037 transient spikes
121 (
LI) 1.151 1.05 0.993 0.938 0.878 improve little.
ESR ( S2) 1.106 1.043 0.94 0.93 0.87 a) CI:Ripple
Capacitance (p F) 58.3 42.6 22.6 7.87 1.99 voltage 0.26V
pk-pk, transient
spikes 1.02V
220p F/10V
pk-pk.
Philips 037 b) C2: Ripple
121 (il) 0.824 0.785 0.738 0.706 0.671
voltage 0.3V
ESA ( SI) 0.818 0.783 0.74 0.71 0.67 pk-pk, transient
Capacitance (pF) 129 68.4 27.1 9.1 2.0 spikes 0.39V
pk-pk.
220pF/10V c) C3: Ripple
Rubycon YXF voltage 0.1V
0.404 0.372 0.341 0.322 0.308 pk-pk, transient
IZI ((l)
0.32 spikes 0.235V
ESA ((I ) 0.394 0.372 0.34 0.32
pk-pk.
Capacitance (pF) 153 94 44 20.7 9.2

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 461

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

Fig. 4. Using three could not be increased to tit the Sanyo of capacitors from its database.
Rubycon YXF 'Oscon' type 220g 10V size of lOrtun Other capacitors can be used provid-
220pF, 10V by Ilmm [Link] Rubycon 220µF 10V ed you input values for ESR and
capacitors, low YXF style case size was acceptable, capacitance. Isuspect the ESR values
impedance types and it claimed reduced impedance 5. used relate to afrequency of 100kHz
with the same At 100kHz I measured 0.341Q and the capacitance is the catalogue
physical size as impedance, a notable reduction, so value. Ihave not been able to confirm
the 037. Although three of these types were fitted. My this from the help files or user manual,
nominal measurements were repeated, using Fig. 5.
capacitances are exactly the same 'Y' settings as before, This raises the question of whether,
unchanged from Fig. 4. in practice, ESR at 100kHz is the only
Fig. 2, the ripple Ripple voltage is substantially relevant parameter? Ibelieved other
voltages are much reduced, but the transient spikes remain characteristics were equally important,
smaller. almost unchanged. Using the same but astudy of capacitor makers' data
PCB, components and set up, except did not help.
a) CI Ripple for these three capacitors, current While some makers provided full
voltage is 0.12V drawn from the supply had reduced to data, it was not possible to discover
pk-pk, transient 75.6mA, improving efficiency. how ESR at 100kHz had been mea-
spikes are 0.98V To reduce these very fast transients, I sured. It was not always clear whether
pk-pk. inserted a5111-1 inductor 4 and an addi- quoted values were typical or maxi-
b) C2 Ripple tional 220g, 10V YXF capacitor C4, mum values. Some capacitor makers
voltage is 0.09V as shown in the schematic. These provided no high frequency data at all,
pk-pk, transient reduced the transients and the ripple apart from a few selected impedance
spikes are 0.36V voltage to acceptable levels. graphs. There's more on this in the
pk-pk. The protection diode was removed panel entitled, 'Modelling Capacitors'.
c) C3 Ripple from circuit and a5V supply applied. Idecided to measure the 037 and
voltage is 0.035V Now the current measured 66.5mA — YXF capacitors using only general-
pk-pk, transient representing an efficiency of 78%. I purpose laboratory equipment and
spikes are 0.21V could now complete the design of the methods. While these were not preci-
pk-pk. power supply for my tana meter. sion measurements, they gave an ade-
spikes and ripple voltages were little My curiosity had been aroused, so quate comparison of ESR and capaci-
changed. With a nearly fivefold when time permitted, Idetermined to tance/inductance and can be made
increase in nominal capacitance for Ci retrace these steps in order to quantify without investing in extremely expen-
and C2, why had these waveforms not why these differences occurred and sive, high frequency precision LCR
improved more? See Fig. 3. write this article. meters, such as the Agilent
Iremoved these capacitors from the Technologies HP4284.
printed board. After allowing sufficient Capacitor parameters Using basic volt/amp impedance
time for them to cool to room temper- One extremely useful tool Iused dur- measurement techniques, Imeasured
ature, Imeasured impedance at ing the initial design phase of this samples of the three capacitors for
100kHz. The 47µF capacitor measured power supply, was the Spice 2G based impedance by frequency from 10kHz
0.993Q, the 22011F slightly less at `Micropower SwitcherCAD' v2 soft- to 1MHz [Link] from phase measure-
0.738Q. ware, available from Linear ments, Icalculated ESR and capaci-
Board area and height above board Technology [Link] models the inte- tance at these frequencies.
being limited, the capacitor case size grated circuit and provides aselection The accuracy of my impedance mea-
surements was confirmed simply by
Fig. 5. Using 61 11?1134 measurements of IQ and 0.047Q
Micropower 4xAA Alkaline to 5 1V at 51mA metal-film resistors. The true DC val-
SwitcherCAD ues of these had been confirmed by
1001 1N5817
software from Li DI measurement of voltage drop, while
Linear technology. passing adirect current of 100mA.
Simply enter your Values given in the tables for ESR
chosen capacitor and capacitance however depend total-
into adialogue ly on the accuracy of my phase mea-
box. The surements. Using my phase meter6
schematic is with a 4.5-digit DMM for increased
automatically resolution of 0.01°, its accuracy for the
331tF
drawn then C1 angles measured is good up to 100kHz.
simulated. The As the capacitor approaches self-reso-
lower trace shows nance and phase angles less than 1°
that the voltage must be measured, accuracy reduces.
simulated at C2 Philips' data for its 037 style is quite
approximates that clear, specifying a maximum IZI at
5 25-
measured, but the 10kHz for both capacitance values, at
fast transients are 2.0Q The Rubycon YXF data available
5 20-
missing. when Iwas developing the tana power
supply simply claimed 0.412 at 100kHz
5 15/ for the [Link], 10V capacitor. Current
data from Rubycon clearly states that
51
maximum impedance at 20°C is 0.4n,
increasing to 1.6 Q at —10°C. The above

462 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

measurements confirm both claims. adequately represent apracti- libraries supplied with other
From these calculated, apparent Modelling capacitors cal electrolytic capacitor. simulators.
•• •.
capacitance values the similarity in my ¡he most problematic part in
'
A
1,-crittità impluvuu ‘apataivi A furl.r difficulty is that
circuit's ripple and transient voltage aswitched mode power models have been proposed. these models use the variable
performance between the 47e, 50V supply simulation is the At 'CARTS 95', John Prymak •Freq' for frequency to
and the 220µF, 10V 037 types is capacitor model used. of Kemet proposed one calculate frequency dependent
explained. At 100kHz and higher, both Because aswitched-mode method which he applied to a parameters. Frequency of
capacitance values are similar. The power supply operates essen- number of tantalum course is not atime domain
220g, 10V 037 capacitors I used tially in the time domain, most capacitors [Link] approach was parameter, so these improved
offered 25% less impedance but little designers will use atime- reported by Intusoft in the models should not be used.
extra capacitance. domain simulator, usually company's Wescon/95 They can only apply to
The measured capacitance for the derived from the public- Preview, and its November frequency-domain simulation
Rubycon YXF style, reduces less with domain Spice series. 95/January 96 newsletters. runs.
frequency. Across this frequency band As you have seen, capacitor Subsequently aselection of If such models are used for a
its ESR is much smaller. parameters are essentially improved capacitor models time-domain or 'transient'
Ignoring for now the very fast tran- frequency dependent. As a were made freely available simulation, because the 'Freq'
sient spikes, this increased capacitance result, the simplistic ideal from Intusoft's site [Link] not variable then defaults to zero,
coupled with its reduced ESR has more capacitor model provided in aware that any have been then the model assumes an
than halved the ripple voltage com- Spice simulators cannot incorporated into the model unduly large value for ESR
pared to that measured using the
220e, 10V 037 capacitors.
The fast transient voltage spikes, less identical, 50i1 impedance printed cir- also contributes positive and negative
than 5Ons duration, result from capaci- cuit test jigs. These jigs were each con- going inductive overshoot at the pulse
tor and circuit-board inductances. To nected to my pulse generator via a edges. Inductive overshoot is not visi-
evaluate whether this inductance is 10dB isolating attenuator, to minimise ble using the Philips 037 capacitor.
contributed by the 220tiF capacitors or line reflections that might affect the This explains why the very fast
by the circuit board, adifferent mea- generator output. power supply transient spikes are so
surement is needed. Imounted both Both oscilloscope 'Y' channels were similar for both makes of capacitor.
types as shunt loads to ground in test carefully adjusted for equality, prior to The Rubycon YXF has not attenuated
jigs. The),were inserted into acorrect- inserting the test jigs and capacitors the fast spikes significantly more than
ly terminated 5011 system. into the system. The jig-mounted has the Philips 037, even though its has
Application of afast rise-time pulse capacitors attenuate the pulse generator more capacitance and less ESR at
generator revealed these two capacitors signal, as measured by the oscillo- 100kHz, Fig. 6a).
exhibit dramatically different behaviour scope. Using exactly the same test set up, I
when subject to afast rise time pulse. The expected change in pulse height then applied a 100kHz sinewave to
For Fig. 6a), both capacitors were can be seen. But while the Rubycon both capacitors, which visually con-
mounted in individual, hut otherwise capacitor provides better attenuation, it firmed their relative impedances as

A capacitor's impedance must always be smaller than the measured reactance, and thus increases its apparent
The quality of many high-frequency compo- impedance IZI. capacitance, as displayed on an LCR meter.
nents, such as RF inductors and very low- As frequency increases, the above two- At frequencies just above self resonance,
loss capacitors, is often defined by their 'Q' element model becomes invalid. The the capacitive reactance decreases the
factor. This is the result of dividing a capacitor must then be viewed as athree- capacitor's measured reactance, reducing
component's measured AC reactance by its element device. In principle, it is possible to the apparent self inductance, measured on
AC resistive losses. extract these three components, even at low an LCR meter.
The reciprocal of 'Q' is tan8, which is frequency. In practice, unless the value of These two effects result in the sharp
defined as the capacitor's AC resistive this inductive element is known, measure- resonance null observed when measuring
losses (ESR) divided by its capacitive ments several octaves above and below the ceramic and film capacitors. Usually, with
reactance, Xc,at that frequency. Tan8 is capacitors self resonant frequency are aluminium and tantalum electrolytics, their
used to describe the quality of almost all needed, ESR is substantially greater than these
general purpose capacitors, reactances, so anull cannot be observed.
With aluminium-electrolytic capacitors.
I
ZI= .
iESR 2+(X, —XJ 2
N
1 the impedance curve can appear flat bot-
tan 8= —
ESR where X =
X, 2KFC Here, Xc is capacitive reactance and XL the tomed over awide frequency band. In this
Or alternatively, inductive reactance at the measured fre- case the resonant
quency I °. frequency can only
ESR = X. xtan 8
At the self-resonant frequency of the be determined by
and, capacitor, Xc and XL have equal and oppo- measuring the
site reactances and cancel each other. capacitor's phase
tan 5= ESR x2EFC angle. This zero-
Measured impedance IZI then equals the
capacitor's ESR, but only at that particular phase frequency
I
ZI= ESR +jX, =.
IESR 2 +
N
frequency. Phase angle then measures zero. need not coincide
As you may have noticed, tan8 has no upper An LCR meter calculates capacitance and exactly with the
limit; it can, and frequently does, exceed inductance using the two-element model frequency of
unity. Particularly at high frequency, ESR from its measured values for magnitude of minimum
can greatly exceed the capacitor's reactance IZI and phase angle. At frequencies just impedance.
X. At frequencies above or below the below self resonance, the inductive reac-
capacitor's self-resonance frequency, ESR tance decreases the capacitor's measured

463
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

Fig. 6. Comparison You can see from this that knowl- equipment. The above tests are easily
measurements of the edge only of ESR or impedance at replicated using only conventional lab-
220pF, 10V Philips 100kHz is simply not sufficient. oratory test instruments with suitable
037, top trace, versus Capacitance and ESR by frequency and test jigs and methods.
the 220pF, 10V avalue for self inductance are all need- In my next article Iwill describe the
Rubycon YXF, lower ed when choosing capacitors for use in test jigs, together with test methods and
trace, subjected to switched-mode power supplies. These calculation formulae used for this arti-
identical waveforms. parameters can be obtained from sim- cle. Those of you interested can then
Both measurement ple measurements. Have alook at the measure your own capacitor choices.
channels were pre- panel entitled 'A capacitor's Iwill introduce calculation methods
calibrated to ensure impedance'. that can be used to translate measure-
equal responses with ESR of aluminium electrolytics is ments of impedance and phase, into the
no capacitor. also strongly dependent on tempera- three-element capacitor model —induc-
ture. Increase in temperature reduces tance, ESR and capacitance in series —
a) Stressed with afast ESR so 'improving' the capacitor. needed for accurate simulation.
pulse, the 037 However, reduction in ESR can allow In a final article Iwill describe a
capacitor exhibits less the inductive effects to become more more advanced impedance measure-
capacitance and dominant. ment method that gives adirect read-
higher impedance, Should your .application be required out of impedance. There will also be a
while the YXF style to work above or below room temper- circuit diagram for adedicated, direct-
shows inductive ature, it is advisable you also perform reading impedance meter with test jig,
ringing. 'X' time base capacitor comparison measurements at usable from 10kHz to 10MHz. •
was 0.2ps/cm. your highest and lowest working tem-
b) Same set-up as 'A' peratures.
except using 100kHz References
sinewave generator In summary I. Bateman, C, Tana capacitor tester,'
and slower time base These simple, easily-performed tests Electronics World January 2000.
to show the relative explain why my original tana power 2. Linear Technology. [Link]
impedances of the supply behaved as reported when its [Link]
two capacitors. capacitors were changed. Details of 3. Philips Electrolytic Capacitors.
c) Relative these changes provide amethodology [Link]
impedances of these measured for the table, Fig. 6b). easily adapted for other designs. 4. Sanyo Corporation.
capacitors, with sine Both capacitors were the same size Many other capacitor makes and [Link]
wave sweep from and mounted on identical printed-board types are available, some of which may 5. Rubycon Corporation.
1MHz to 10MHz. The test jigs. Both had their can decks be more suitable than the ones Iused. [Link]
037 shows no visible pressed hard against the circuit board, Repetition of these tests, using capaci- 6. Bateman. C, 'Fazed by phase,'
increase, but the YXF ensuring identical lead lengths. I tor values and voltages appropriate to Electronics World November 1997.
capacitor shows self expected they would exhibit similar your design, will assist your final selec- 7. Hageman, Steven, 'Simple PSpice
inductance increasing self inductances. tion. models let you simulate common
impedance above To investigate whether their induc- The optimum choice of capacitor is battery types,' EDN. October 28, 1993.
2MHz. tances differed, using the 'shunt' jigs, I essential when designing an efficient 8. Prymak, John, 'Spice modelling of
applied asinusoidal frequency sweep power supply. Equipped with these test Capacitors CARTS 95,' 15th
from 1MHz to 10MHz. The Rubycon methods, adesigner can use test fre- Capacitor and Resistor Technology
YXF style is becoming inductive quencies and temperatures suited to the Symposium. March '95.
around 2MHz. The Philips 037 capac- end application, rather than basing 9. Intusoft. [Link]
itor impedance continues to fall, choice only on 100kHz, room temper- 10. Parametric Analysis for Electronic
remaining capacitive to 10MHz. The ature, values. Components and Circuit Evaluation. —
Philips capacitor has less self induc- Apart from my test jigs, Iused no AN339 Agilent Technologies.(H.P.)
tance of the two types, Fig. 6c). specialist or expensive measuring USA.

Batteries 15% from cell to cell. This internal simulation model.

Batteries are non-linear devices having resistance increases with load current, The pulsing current demand from
significant internal resistance. For agiven battery ageing and reduced ambient switched-mode power supplies compli-
type, their capacity varies some 10% to temperature. Consequently precise cates battery modelling. Hageman sug-
modelling to gauge battery life is not gests using the RMS average of the pulsed
practical. current to avoid convergence problems
One approach to simulating common and excessive simulation run times.
battery types, devised by Steve A similar approach is used in the
Hageman 7,uses PSpice analogue Micropower SwitcherCAD software
behavioural modelling techniques. Steve available from Linear Technology [Link]
used alarge capacitor to represent the uses asimplified battery model and
ampere-hour capacity of the cell, with simulates aconstant power drain from the
look-up tables of cell-voltage versus battery. This power level is calculated
charge state. A discharge rate normaliser from the results of aburst mode simula-
represents capacity loss at higher dis- tion cycle for the switching IC used.
Fig. A. Typical plot of battery life, using the charge rates and avariable cell resistor to The simulator then outputs agraph of
Micropower SwitcherCAD software, shows characterise the internal resistance of the cell voltage versus discharge hours to
battery voltage by time with a292mW load. battery. A discharge circuit completes his approximate battery life, Fig. A.

464 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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etc. qty. in stock. BULK PURCHASE ONLY FR JOHNS RA HP5345A •5354A Plugin -itGIU -000.
B&K Items in stock -ask for list. Co ril usieat Ion Test Se -Opt HP5345A •5355A Plugin with 5356A 186H: Head -E1K.
Power Supplies Heavy duty . bench in stock Farnell -HP - 4-5 -1 1 -H13-K13. £1,500- 7 HP5385A 16Hz 5386A-5386A 36H: Counter -[1K-[2K.
Weir -Thurlby -Racal etc. Ask for list. Large quantity in stock, opt 002 Spect If us tracking erator Racal/Dana Counter 1991-160MC/S -
all types to 400 amp 100Kv. -3-4-5-11- art includes syn sig Racal/Dana Counter 1992-1.3GHz -£600.
HP8405A Vector voltmeter late colour £400. or digital osc er mod m Racal/Dana Counter 9921-3GH: -050.
HP8508A Vector voltmeter -£2500. power meter £2,
HP8505A Network Ant 500KHz-1.3GH: -[1000.
GNAL GENERATORS
HP8505A .8502A or 8503A test sets- f1
HP8640A -AM-FM 0.5-512-1024MCS -£200-£400.
HP8505A •8502A or 8503A .8501A
HP86408 -Phase locked -AM-FM-0.5-512-1024MC/S -[500-
Phillips 3217 50Mc.s oscilloscope plus R
[1.2K. Opts 1-2-3 available.
Wavetek-Schlumberger 4031 Ra on Test Sets-1000M
HP8654A -BAM-FM 10MC'S-520MC/S -£300.
8RF Test Sets-1000MC ch.
HP8656A SYN AM-FM 0.1-990MCS -£900.
LIGHT AND OPTICAL E 0 2960 RF Test Sets-1000 1,2 •each.
HP86568 SYN AM-FM 0.1-990MCS -£1.5K.
Anritsu ML93A & Optical L er -£250. M ONI 2955A RF Test Sets-1000 £1,500 each.
HP8657A SYN AM-FM 0.1-1040MC/S -E2K.
Anritsu ML936 & Optical Le Meter •£50. MARCONI 2960A RF Test Sets•1caonicrs -C1,500 each.
HP8657B SYN AM-FM 0.1-2060MC/S -£3K.
Power Sensors for above M MA98A MA913A Battery ANRITSU MS555A2 Radio Comm Anz-1000M'Cs -[750 HP8660C SYN AM-FM-PM-0.01-1300MCS-2600MCS -E2K.
Pack MZ95A. rach. HP8660D SYN AM-FM-PM-0.01-1300MC/S-2600MC/S -C3K.
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PI available •MI49140 1.3 .MH9158 1.3 -MH9138 0.85 - ElOKC,S•1040MC/S -AM-FM -[400 inc. instruction book -
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tested. HP3314A Function Generator AM-FM.VC0-20MC/S -E600
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Anritsu MW'38A rime Domain Reflector 10KC S-1.01GHZ AM-FM -[500 inc. instruction book -
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MFt925A 1X MH929A 1.55 -MH925A 13GI MH914C 13SM R&S APN 62 LP [Link] 0.1Hz -260KHz chiv book -£250
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Racal/Dana 9082 SVN SG AM-FM-PH-1.5.520MCS -£400.
Light Source £350. SGenerator doubles the output frequency EG.50-1300MCS to
Racal/Dana 9081 SYN SG AM-FM-PH-.001-104MCS -£300.
Anritsu M2118A 0 EConverter. 50•2600MC S price from £250 -[450 each.
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Marconi TF2008 AM-FM-Sweep 10KCS-510MC,S -[200 Fully
Anritsu ML.968 Power Meter & Charger £450. SPECTRUM ANALYZERS
Tested to £300, as new , book •probe kit in wooden box.
Anritsu MN95B Variable Att. 1300 £100 HP 3580A 5HZ-50KHZ -050.
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TEK P6701 Optical Converter 700 MC,'S-850 £250. HP 8568E 100HZ-1.5GHZ -£4.500.
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OR PRICE CHANGE
ITEMS BOUGHT FROM HM GOVERNMENT BEING SURPLUS. PRICE IS EX WORKS. SAE FOR ENQUIRIES PHONE FOR APPOINTMENT OR FOR DEMONSTRATION OF ANY ITEMS, AVAILABILI
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Johns Radio, Whitehall Works, 84 Whitehall Road East, Birkenshaw, Bradford BD11 2ER. Tel: (01274) 684007. Fax: 651160

CIRCLE NO. Ill ON REPLY CARD

 Begiiiners' Ian Hickman has
produced a number
of projects for
members of the
Universi of
Portsmouth RF Club
to help students

II
nearlier generations — such as my circuits, and getting them working. build, troubleshoot
own — students of light-current So it was inevitable that they would
electrical engineering would usual- metaphorically stub their toes on a and test circuitry, in
ly have had some exposure to practi- hundred minor problems, and learn a
cal electronics, prior to embarking great deal in the process. And that is
connection with the
upon their degree course. the whole point of this little one-IC RFEE Initiative,
Conversations with fellow students project, and others to be described
and, later, with colleagues, showed later. described in last
that my own route into electronics
was typical of many in that era. The IC
month's issue. The
Starting with afascination, as alad, The circuit uses that ubiquitous and circuits are graded in
with clocks and all things mechanical, versatile integrated circuit, the 555
I progressed through Meccano to timer. Produced originally in bipolar complexity -the
messing about with torch bulbs, old technology many years ago, it is now
No 8batteries and scruffy bits of dou-
earlier ones not even
available from many manufacturers
ble-cotton covered wire. also as acurrent-frugal CMOS device. directly concerned
Eventually, I rescued a scrapped Both versions are packaged in an 8-
alarm clock, and repaired it. With the pin housing, while a'dual 555', name- with radio
aid of a relay and other bits and ly the 556. is available in a 14 pin frequencies. But all
pieces, I turned into a potentially package. Figure 1shows the internal
lethal time-switch, to turn on my bed- workings of the beast, which include are instructive. Here,
side light in the morning. three equal resistors connected acros
Later Iprogressed through crystal the supply pins, two comparators, and Ian introduces the
sets and then 2V battery valves until, aflip-flop with reset input. very simplest,
in the 61hform, Iconstructed ahome- The comparators, connected to the
brew three waveband mains superhet. resistive potential divider, control the suitable for those
This used components that Ibought bistable device, which is also known
from the various government surplus as aflip-flop. This in turn controls two
with little, if any,
radio shops to be found in London's output stages, one low impedance, the prior experience of
Lisle Street in the early fifties, all later other an open collector n-p-n transi
replaced by sex shops* and later still tor. constructing and
incorporated into Soho's Chinatown.
By contrast, it appeared that few, if How the circuit works trouble-shooting
any, of the present-day students for Figure 2shows the 555 timer IC con- hardware.
whom Iproduced these little exercises nected as an astable multivibator, or
in electronics build-and-test had had oscillator. It can also be connected as
Fig. 1. Showing any previous experience in making up amonostable multivibrator, as afre-
the internal
quency divider, or as any of various transistor at pin 8, and setting pin 3
arrangement of •Iwonder how he knows? Ed types of modulator'. high.
the 555 timer IC.
Operation is as follows. Capacitor At this point, the LED lights again,
C2 charges up towards the +15V sup- and the cycle repeats, with C2 charg-
ply voltage V via R2 and R3. When ing up towards V, once more. As the
8
OV Gnd +Vcc the voltage at pin 6reaches the thresh- three resistors, R, forming the internal
old voltage at the other input of the potential divider chain are all equal,
associated comparator, the flip-flop is the voltage at pin 6 cycles up and
reset. This sets the low impedance down between 1/3 and 2/3 of V.
output at pin 3 'low', i.e. connects it
7
Discharge to OV ground instead of V„, extin- Build it
guishing the light-emitting diode. It The circuit can be built up in various
also turns on the open collector 'dis- ways. A scrap of 0.1 inch matrix cop-
charge' transistor at pin 7, clamping per strip-board, cut from RS stock
the junction of R2 and R3 to OV number 433-595 or 433-602 can be
Comparator Threshold
Output ground. used; the same material, in different-
Capacitor C2 now discharges sized sheets, is available from all the
towards OV via R3, until the voltage at usual electronic components cata-
the 'trigger' input, pin 2, reaches the logues.
Control
threshold at the other input of its asso- Alternatively, aprinted-circuit board
voltage
ciated comparator. This then sets the layout can be produced. Nowadays,
V (int.)
flip-flop, turning off the discharge this is always done on apersonal corn-

466 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 RF DESIGN

puter, IBM compatible or MAC, did not work first time, the causes
rather than the old way with alight- were many and various, but all mys-
box, film and black tape. But produc- terious to the uninitiated.
ing a pcb is time consuming, and
Fig. 2. Astable
assumes the university's or college's ...and if it doesn't
LED flasher
pcb facility is available for use. One group checked and rechecked
circuit.
The students Iwas working with their circuit, but it still refused to work.
met after hours, in their own free time, Asked to assist, Inaturally checked
so the pcb facility not an option. that the power was actually connected.
Instead they made the circuit up on Yes, the PSU was on, and red and
0.1in matrix plug-type prototyping black wires ran to the appropriate
board, after the style of RS 488-618 or coloured terminals at the end of the
488-933. prototype plug-board. But my pocket
With acircuit operating at low fre- DVM registered nothing between pins
quencies such as this, layout is unim- 1and 8of the IC. This picked up its
portant. Component leads were simply +15V supply from one of the rows of
bent as required, to plug in wherever holes along the edge of the plug-board,
convenient. This produced some weird with ared line alongside them. So it Hence f=1.44/(e2+2R 3)C2.
and wonderful layouts, but they all was apparent that the red terminal was If the supply voltage V„ changes,
worked, eventually, the LED winking not meant for alead from the PSU, but say increases, the charge/discharge
away encouragingly. It also meant that for awire to pick up on one of the red- currents increase and the voltage
the circuits could be disassembled at strip holes! The lead from the PSU across C2 changes more rapidly. But as
the end of the evening, the leads was meant to have a 4mm banana the two threshold voltages produced
straightened out, and the components plug, to engage with the central socket by the IC's internal chain of three
returned to the appropriate compart- of the isolated red terminal post. resistors change by exactly the same
ments in a set of drawers. This had Another group, finding the circuit percentage, the frequency is com-
been purchased, like the prototype did not work, concluded that the IC pletely independent of supply voltage.
boards and indeed the components must be faulty, and changed it —to no A negative-going edge at the reset
themselves, especially for use by the avail. Of course, 999 times out of a input, pin 4, resets the internal flip-
university's RF Club, with funds pro- thousand, if acircuit does not work, it flop. As this function is not required in
vided by the RFEEI. is not the fault of acomponent; it is the astable mode, pin 4is tied to pin 8
much more likely that of the circuit and V. In monostable mode, it may
Try to get it working... developer. be used to terminate the output pulse
The students worked either alone or in Fortunately, most modern semicon- early, if so required.
small groups, whichever they pre- ductors prove very hardy indeed, and Pin 5connects to the junction of the
ferred. Predictably enough, quite a survive accidental abuse beyond what upper two resistors of the IC's internal
few of the circuits did not work first one would imagine possible. reference chain, and is shown decou-
time. In afew cases there were acci- pled to ground in Fig. 2 via a lOnF
dental misconnections, which could Features of the 555 capacitor. In the present application,
have destroyed the IC or the light Having got their circuits functioning, this is not essential. But if the circuit
emitting diode, had not the advice of a the club members were keen to inves- were part of alarger system, sharing
seasoned circuit developer been fol- tigate the workings of the circuit. its V„ with other devices, in the
lowed. Ishowed the club members Oscilloscopes were to hand, and so the absence of C1,noise or ripple on V,
how to ensure that the first-time various waveforms could be investi- could affect the timing accuracy, caus-
power-up was safely achieved by gated. ing jitter on the output waveform. •
using a power supply with variable Pin 3of course showed a0to +15V
current limit. squarewave — except that it was not Reference
The output voltage of the power 'square'. The reason appeared on I. See for example the application
supply unit was first set to +15V with viewing the `sawtooth' waveform at data in the LM555/LM555C
the prototype circuit disconnected. pin 6, for which purpose, C2 was Timer details in the National
Fig. 3. Upper trace,
The variable current-limit control was reduced in value to 100nF. This per- Applications Specific Analog 555 output at pin3;
then set to minimum, fully anticlock- mitted afaster, flicker-free 'scope trace Products Databook, from lower trace,
wise, causing the output voltage to to be used, and showed the two seg- National Semiconductor. waveform at pin 6.
collapse to zero. ments of the exponential charge/dis-
Next, the circuit was connected and charge cycle, as in Fig. 3, lower trace,
the power supply's output switched and the output, upper trace.
on, advancing the current limit control Capacitor C2 charges from 1/3 to 2/3
cautiously while keeping aclose eye of V„. via R2+R 3,and discharges in the
on the current meter. If the current did opposite direction, between the same
not exceed the expected ten milliamps two voltage levels via R3 alone. Thus
or so as the voltage rose to the preset these two resistors set the on:off duty
+15V level, then all was well. Even if cycle. Whatever their value, this can
the circuit was not actually working, never be 1:1. If they are equal, as in
at least it was safe to leave on while Fig. 2. then the on:off ratio at the out-
trouble-shooting. put is 2:1.
If on the other hand, the current The on time is given by
increased alarmingly while the supply ton es.693(R2+R3)C2 and the off time

voltage was still only avolt or so, it by t off=0.693(R3)C2. So the frequen-

was time to switch off and recheck the cy fin hertz is given by f=1 /T, where
circuit connections. Of the circuits that T=(t on i-t off )=0.693 (R 2+2R3)C2.

467
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
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CIRCLE NO.1 2ON REPL) C4RD

.• .11 .• .• • .• .•

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WATCH SLIDES ON TV d

MAKE VIDEOS OF
YOUR SLIDES PPM5 rt

DIGITISE YOUR 20 PIN DUAL IN LINE

SLIDES
(using a video capture card)

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Tel 01246 211202 Fax 01246 550959 MastercardNisa/Switch Telephone: 01483 275997 Fax: 01483 276477
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CIRCLE NO. 113 ON REPLY CARD CIRCLE NO.11.4 O\ REPI 1 ( 1RD

-168 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 PRODUCTS
Please quote Electronics World when seeking further information

Flash PSD bandpass filtering for home DSL network processor

Waferscale Integration has introduced phone-line networking products such Sequoia is making available a
three Easyflash PSDs for adding as network-interface cards, modem network processor platform combining
in-system and in-application add-on cards and set-top boxes. silicon with networking software. The
programmable (IAP) flash memory. They also stop the home networking integrated product from Basis
SRAM and programmable logic to signal from interfering with telephone Communications includes a BC6911
or Internet access. The B6001 is a DSL network processor chip, with
8-bit Cisc microcontroller systems.
They provide a single-chip memory 14-pin, through-hole device service protocol stacks, real-time
incorporating 10baseT filtering and operating system and open API for
subsystem. including the
programmable logic for the MCU isolation. The 86003 and B6005 are developers to add IP-based
interface, address decoding. chip 16-pin surface mount parts. The applications. The platform is for
B6005 also has 10baseT filtering and customer equipment such as DSL
selects and other logic functions. The
design flow is automated using point supports the 79C978 chipset from modems, routers and bridges for
AMD. The bandpass filter portion Internet access. One chip comprises
and click menus in the firm's
ensures the 6 to 9MHz operation for ATM segmentation and reassembly
Windows-based PSDSoft Express
EDA tool. The largest device, the terminal stubbing. The 184-circuit home networking products has a processor. ARM7TDMI Rise core with
version has the same profile as its nominal insertion loss of 3dB. These 4kbyte of local SRAM. 8kbyte of
PSD934F2. has 256kbyte of flash
168-circuit DIMM socket, and the parts offer a return loss of 12dB internal SRAM. PCI interface. Utopia
memory, a second 32kbyte flash
memory array that allows IAP during 200-circuit unit has the same profile within the home networking portion interface and peripheral block. As well
system operation. 8kbyte of SRAM as the 200-circuit standard. and 18dB for 10baseT. They include as performing ATM adaption layer-
Molex protection circuitry, isolation and EMI five segmentation and reassembly,
and programmable logic to
Tel: 01420 488488 filtering. the ARM CPU controls the end
implement the MCU interface,
Enq No 503 Pulse device, supports network signalling
address decoding, chip selects,
Tel: 01483 401700 and provides local management. It
memory mapping and other logic
Enq No 504 uses Wind River's Vxworks and runs
functions. The PSD913F1 has Filter modules TCP/IP stacks and other IP based
128kbyte of flash, 32kbyte EEPROM
Pulse has launched three filter applications for bridges and routers.
array for data storage and MCU- Power metering HTTP. DHCP. NAT. PAT. SNMP and
controlled IAP. 2kbyte of SRAM and modules that meet the Home Phone
programmable logic. The PSD913F2 Networking Alliance 1MbiUs IFR has added statistical analysis
is identical to the PSD913F1. except specifications and are UL1950 functions to its Gigatronics 8650A
the second IAP memory array is certified for supplementary insulation universal power meters for designing
flash-based. requirements. They provide the and testing wireless communications
Walerscale Integration systems. They include histograms,
Tel: 001 510 656 5400 cumulative distribution function,
Enq No 501 complementary cumulative
distribution function and strip-chart
capabilities. The meters are available
DIMM sockets in single and dual channel
Molex is now manufacturing double configurations and can measure the
data-rate DIMM sockets for high- peak and average power of TDMA.
bandwidth memory systems in GSM and CDMA signals. They can
workstations, servers and desktop also measure CW and pulse
computers. Features include dual modulated signals with NIST
latches and a positive latch that traceable accuracy from 10MHz to
produces an audible click when 40GHz between —70 and +47dBm.
secured in the open and closed IFR
positions. A module prealignment Tel: 01483 772172
feature reduces misalignment and Enq No 505

Microcontroller starter kit

NEC starter kits are available for evaluating applications on the firm's
V850/SAI microcontroller in real time. The Startware kits offer in-device
emulation and operate at the maximum performance of the
microcontroller. They will run programs from a PC running Greenhills
Multi embedded development kit, Programs will run without wait states if
they are executed from internal flash memory or external SRAM and
require one wait state if external flash memory is used. The kits contain
elements to evaluate I/O-functions such as DIP switches and a seven-
segment-display. The 256kbyte internal flash of the microcontroller is
available so a kit can be used as astand-alone device or as a ready-to -
use system in auser's application. Half the flash memory runs hardware
test functions and adebug monitor. The debugging mode uses the
monitor program in the internal flash memory of the microcontroller. There
is also a stand-alone mode when a user program can be in the internal or
the external flash memory. User application programs can be downloaded
into 512kbyte external flash memory or SRAM. Chip select logic lets RAM
and flash swap their memory locations.
NEC
Tel 01909 691133
Enq No 502

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

 NEW PRODUCTS

Please quote Electronics World when seeking further information

MIR can be added to the Vxworks onboard programmability for last- H-bridge. When both enable pins are for NiCd systems. Hold-up times are
RTOS. Local SRAM is used to minute adaptation to the application. held low, the device will enter sleep determined by battery size. The use
execute timing-critical driver code. Features include brownout detection mode, when it consumes less than of linear technology makes the units
Sequoia function, power-on reset and 100pA. suitable for fire and security alarms,
Tel: 01189 769000 watchdog timer. The device also Allegro Microsystems process control and radio
Enq No 506 includes an on-chip oscillator to Tel: 01932 253355 communications.
provide five user-programmable Enq No 511 Kingshill Electronics
modes that let the user tune the
Multichip module Tel: 01634 821200
performance and power Enq No 513
From GD Technik is White Electronic consumption. When using the
LED module
Designs' WEDC3C750A multichip oscillator, two additional pins can be Lascar Electronics has launched the
module combining a 32-bit PowerPC released for use as I/0s, increasing DPM 340 LED module. The 3.5 digit
Videophone IC
750 Risc processor with 1Mbyte the I/0 pin count from 16 to 18. unit has apanel cut-out of 38 by Toshiba has launched asingle-chip
SSRAM L2 cache. The 200MHz Thurlby Thandar 18mm and an individual digit height of MPEG-4 videophone system-level IC
version of the PowerPC is embedded Tel: 01480 412451 for the IMT-2000 digital mobile phone
into the module but Arthur (200 to Enq No 510 system due for introduction in Japan
300MHz) and Conan (300 to next year. The IC conforms with
400MHz) upgrades are available. standard video-and-speech
User-programmable power-saving
ADPCM processor
compression and integrates an
modes are incorporated including For speech compression in wireless MPEG-4 video codec, speech codec,
doze, nap and sleep states. The two PBX and digital cordless telephones. audio and video multiplexer and a
128k x36 synchronous pipeline the AT1008 from Steadlands is an 16Mbit DRAM. It supports MPEG-4
SRAMs have a maximum cache eight-channel (octal) full-duplex image compression and
frequency of 100MHz. Internal bus ADPCM processor for cordless PBX decompression. Using 0.25pm CMOS
frequency is 66MHz. The processor technology, it measures 10.84 x
and two SSRAMs are flip-chip 10.84mm.
attached to a 255 CBGA or optional Toshiba Electronics
CCGA. The module measures 21 by Tel 0208 938 4644
25mm. I/O count is 255. Embedded Enq No 514
applications include power and fire 7.6mm. It comes in acarrier with
control, navigation, guidance and integral snap-in bezel. The module
aerospace systems. operates from a 5V supply and has
GD Technik auto-polarity, auto zero and ±200mV
PMC analyser
Tel: 001189 342277 full scale reading. A PCB socket strip VMetro has announced the
Enq No 507 is provided with each module for PBTM-515 PMC bus analyser.
connection to the target instrument. Sampling speed is up to 66.7MHz.
Linux DSP board Lascar Electronics For debugging. testing and validation
Tel 01794 884567 of PCI chips, boards and systems, the
Ixthos has introduced aCompactPCI Enq No 539 module contains acomplete logic
DSP board for telecoms voice analyser for the PMC bus. The
processing. Features include more analyser can capture and display all
than 26 000Mips of DSP, 81.3 Battery backup supplies
bus activity in PMC motherboards
Specint95 of Risc and the firm's Kingshill is stocking BS30 24V with trigger and store qualifiers, and
Champ common heterogeneous and Ti and El switching. The chip is battery-backup power supplies for has statistics functions to measure
architecture for multi-processing. The compatible with ITU-T G.726 at 40. mains-failure applications. The series PCI performance. It operates on PCI
board is for processing high voice and 32. 24 and 16kbitis and can operate covers outputs from 2to 40A. Though buses up to 64-bit wide. The user can
data throughput channels from DTMF on 16 channels of PCM to ADPCM designed for sealed lead-acid control the analyser via USB and
and vocoder to voice recognition and compression, 16 channels of ADPCM batteries, the units can be adjusted RS232. It can be expanded with
generation. Running Linux, the board to PCM decompression or eight
can process more than 1000 channels of full-duplex operation in an
broadband integrated voice and data 8kHz frame. Available in 28-pin DIP
channels in a6U CompactPCI slot. It or skinny packages, it can be Mains/harmonics analyser
uses the Motorola PowerPC Altivec configured for setting input or output The HA1600 from Thurlby Thandar is a mains and harmonics analyser with
Risc microprocessor and the SMP for PCM clock. PCM frame sync. graphical display to test compliance with forthcoming EEC directives
real-time extensions from Linux. The ADPCM clock and ADPCM frame relating to the harmonic content of the current waveform. It is capable of
board supports two PMC expansion sync for system use by athree-wire continuous real-time analysis of voltage and current. As a general-purpose
modules. These expansion sites can serial port. It can be programmed with mains analyser. it can measure watts, VA, root-mean-square voltage and
be used for Ti and El. ATM, frame algorithms, data rate and time slot current, peak voltage and current, crest factors. total harmonic distortion,
relay, 0C3 and 0C48 Sonet, 10 and assignments for individual channels power factor, frequency and inrush current with a rating of 16A rms
100baseT and Gigabit Ethernet on-the-fly. continuous. As a harmonic analyser, it is for precompliance measurements
applications. Steadlands using normal mains supplies. Its shunt resistance of 3rni2 lets it make
lxthos Tel: 01670 361261 compliance measurements to IEC1000-3-2 with asuitable power source.
Tel: 001 703 779 7800 Enq No 512 Capabilities include real-time class D evaluation and visual display,
Enq No 508 continuous harmonic calculation of harmonic limits to IEC1000-3-2, inrush
Dual motor-driver IC current analysis and timed test sequences with analysis of fluctuating
8-bit micro harmonics.
Allegro Microsystems is supplying a Thurlby Thandar
Philips has announced an 80051- motor-driver IC. the A3976, which is Tel: 01480 412451
based 51LPC microcontroller with designed to drive both windings of a Enq No 509
integrated four-channel, multiplexed bipolar stepper motor or
8-bit a-to-d converter on-chip. bidirectionally control two DC motors.
Applications include battery chargers The device features two H-bridges,
and sensors. The 87LPC767 has both of which are capable of
continuous output currents of up to
±500mA and operating voltages to
30V. Free-wheeling, substrate-
isolated diodes are included to
provide output transient suppression
when motors or other inductive loads
are being switched. For each bridge,
aphase input controls load current
polarity by selecting the appropriate
source and sink driver pair.
The enable input, when held high,
activates the respective output

470 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 471

NEW PRODUCTS

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piggyback modules or daughter with a profile of 8.5 or 10.5mm, it is

cards, such as an exerciser and a based on aforward converter
protocol and timing violation detector. topology, using all-surface-mount
VMetro components and planar magnetics to
Tel 00 47 22 106090 provide aconversion efficiency up to
Enq No 515 91 per cent. A synchronous rectifier
provides its three fixed output
voltages of 2.5, 3.3 and 5.1V. No
25W DC-to-DC converter
external circuitry is required as the
Available from Melcher. the IMS25 is input and outputs are internally
a25W PCB-mounting DC-to-DC filtered to reduce ripple and noise and
converter for processor-based comply with EN55022. Isolation
applications including telecoms, data- complies with EN60950 for the rated
processing. networking, test input voltage range, so it can be used
equipment and industrial automation. in IT and office equipment. Two
Housed in a50 by 40mm package versions are available. The open-
frame version has the 8.5mm profile
for protected environments. The
ruggedised full-case version has lugs
for screw mounting and acoating for
protection from harsh environments.
Melcher
Tel 001 425 474752 SMD trimming pot
Eno No 516 Boums has introduced an SMD trimming potentiometer. The Trimpot 3361
has aplastic housing and rotor, and can withstand infra-red radiation,
convection solder reflow and high-pressure wash systems. The
Low-noise amplifiers
component's rotor adjustment slot has been designed for high-speed
A series of low noise amplifiers automatic machine interfaces.
starting with a 14dB gain variant with Boumes
abandwidth from 10 to 1000MHz has Tel 00 41 41 768 5555
been introduced by Pascal. It has Enq No 517
parameters of IP03 at 52dBm and
noise figure less than 3dB over most
of the frequency range. Units are rugged, screened aluminium
powered by 15V DC and come in housings.
Pascall

The Distributor with

Tel: 01983 817300
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Tel 01371 975758 administration. maintenance and
Relays - PA Systems - Tools - Test Equipment - etc Enq No 519 software updates.
Fax or write to us for our latest catalogue Infineon Technologies
Tel: 00 49 89 234 24497
Terminal and chip

661
Eno No 520
Semiconductor Supplies International Ltd
card ICs
Infineon is offering two chips for
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contactless chip card applications -
Sutton, Surrey. England, UK. SM1 4TW the SLF9000N secure-terminal For remote utility metering. Micrel has
020-8643 1126 (Sales and Technical Queries) contactless-logic IC and SLF9611 introduced two Owikradio 150MHz
Fax: 020-8643 3937 (For International use +4420) security access module. They are for single-chip RF receivers - the
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NEW PRODUCTS

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adigital data-stream output. The reverse polarity, blocking and mobiles. When used outdoors, the zinc-iron and magnesium-
F004 comes in SOIC-16 packaging overload by PTC resistor, partially measurement system is supported by manganese-aluminium-iron. Dielectric
and the F044 in a SOIC-8 package. impedance protected. The fan a navigation system for dead materials include temperature-
Power consumption is 2.4mA and can delivers airflow at about 34m 3/hr and reckoning, recording position data compensated types in zirconium-tin-
be reduced by duty cycling; a 10:1 incorporates adust filter accessible even without aGPS signal. For this. a titanate. Typical characteristics
duty cycle reduces it to 240pA. from the front panel of the computer. D-GPS-compatible 12-channel GPS include dielectric constant of 37 ±1, Q
Micrel Semiconductor Sight Systems receiver and an inertial navigation of 5000 at 9.4GHz, loss tangent less
Tel 01635 524455 Tel 01903 242001 system are integrated. This lets the than 0.0002 and temperature
Enq No 521 Enq No 524 user perform distance triggered field coefficient of -3 to +12ppm -1 ±1.
measurements without adaptation to Schaefer plastic dielectrics are also
the vehicle. The firm claims the available. These comprise afinely
Power MOSFETs Triple reset generator complete system will fit in an attache divided ceramic filler dispersed in a
Intersil now manufactures two Linear Technology has introduced the case. polystyrene matrix. They come in 114
n-channel power MOSFETs using its LTC1726 triple-supply monitor, which Sight Systems by 114mm blocks up to 30mm thick.
Ultrafet technology. Rated at 100V at lets the user monitor three supply Tel: 00 49 89 4129 3779 Typical characteristics are dielectric
75A with a maximum Rdsiorij of 14 and voltages with ±1.5 per cent threshold Enq No 525 constant from 3to 20, loss tangent
8m52. the HUF75645 and 75652 accuracy. It has an open-drain reset less than 0.0009 and operating
respectively are for uninterruptible output with an adjustable delay so temperature from -55 to +100 C.
power supplies. DC-to-DC converters. supervisory functions can match the
Comms analyser Frequency Products
load switching, motor controls and application. The reset and watchdog Tektronix has introduced the Tel 01460 256300
AC/DC power supplies. The firm time-out periods are adjustable using CSA8000 communications signal Enq No 528
claims they can withstand high peak external capacitors. The monitor is analyser for transmitter designers.
currents and energy in the avalanche configured for 5and 3.3V or 3.3 and manufacturing test engineers and Embedded vision
mode for switching inductive loads. 2.5V with the third supply adjustable technicians. It can test 10Gbit/s
Inters il down to 1V. It comes in SO-8 and transmitters and can handle multi-rate processor
Tel: 01344 350250 eight-pin MSOP packages optical communications testing. The The Coreco Mamba from Pinnacle
Enq No 523 Linear Technology Vision is an embedded vision
Tel: 01276 677676 processor based on the Pentium II for
Enq No 526 machine vision and medical imaging
Drive cooler applications. Data transfer speeds on
Sight Systems has introduced adrive the 200Mbit/s auxiliary bus are higher
cooler for use with its industrial
Portable GSM than on the host PCI bus. Developers
chassis systems. The SR-DC1 cooler measurement can use the Mamba with the firm's
fits in front of the 5.25in drive housing. Rohde & Schwarz's new TS55-C3 Viper RGB for colour applications. the
Based on a Papst 8000 12V DC fan portable GSM measurement system Viper-Digital for applications that
with external rotor motor, the cooler is for GSM900. 1800 and 1900 use require cameras with multiple digital
has integrated commutation indoors and outdoors. The system inputs, and the Viper-Quad for
electronics and protection against includes atriggering circuit and a simultaneous acquisition from up to
TS55-RX three-channel RF receiver four cameras.
plug-in card inserted into the PCSP Pinnacle Vision
coverage measurement unit. Each Tel 01784 473990
channel on the plug-in card can be Enq No 529
set individually and assigned with a
frequency of any GSM band. The user-configurable modular Internet enabler
GSM900 band also covers GSM-R architecture and various optical plug-
(railway) and GSM-E (extended). The in modules support conformance processor
system is controlled by the firm's testing to multiple standards. Short- Atmel and Aplio have launched the
Romes measurement software. It has term trigger jitter is typically less than AT75C310 Internet appliance
four RS232 serial interfaces for 1ps and timebase stability less than processor IC with embedded Linux
connecting external equipment such 0.1ppm. operating system, VolP, audio
as GPS receivers or GSM test Tektronic application software and an
Tel: 01344 392000 application development platform for
Enq No 527 Internet phones, e-mail phones and
One-chip telephone ICs MP3 appliances. The VolP application
software delivers telephone sound
Philips has announced two one-chip
Microwave materials quality using Packetplus technology.
telephone ICs that combine several Frequency Products has launched The Linux layer supports DSP
onboard functions of speech, dialler microwave ferrites and dielectric functions including modules for aV34
and ringer devices. The UB2050 and materials shaped as rods, blocks. modern. G723.1 and G729A voice
2051 let corded phone makers replace discs, truncated triangles. hexagons codecs, silence compression and
three chips with one. They come in the and substrates. For microwave echo cancellation.
28-pin SO package and integrate communication applications, the Atmel
features such as DTMF and pulse ferrites include garnets and spinels. Tel: 001 408 436 4229
dialling, last-number redial and Garnets can be supplied in yttrium- Enq No 530
repertory dialling of 13 numbers with up aluminium, yttrium-gadolinium
to 21 digits. Also onboard are an aluminium iron and yttrium gadolinium
integrated earpiece amplifier with gain iron. SpineIs are available in lithium-
Snap-action switch
boost facility, microphone amplifier and titanium zinc iron, nickel-chromium Introduced by Matsushita is the CS
programmable ringer with four-level snap-action switch with built-in
volume control and up to four melodies connector. No crimp-blade or screw
programmable via the keypad. Pulse terminals are needed and no soldering
and DTMF dial settings are adaptable is required. It has adust prevention
to different parts of the world via an
external resistor and the dialler has two
access pause intervals of 2 and 3.6s.
Line current is from 11 to 140mA and
they operate at DC line voltages down
to 1.45V. Automatic gain control
provides line-loss compensation for the
microphone and receiving amplifiers.
Philips Semiconductor
Tel: 00 31 40 272 2091
Enq No 522

474 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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State of the art PAL (UK spec) UHF TV tuner module monitors, Full multisync etc. 32U -High Quality -All steel RakCab
!with composite IV pp video & NlCAM hi fi stereo sound Full 90 day guarantee. Only £199.00 (E) Made by Eurocraft Enclosures Ltd to the highest possible spec,
'outputs. Micro electronics all on one small PCB only 73 x 160 rack features all steel construction with removable
x 52 mm enable full tuning control via a simple 3 wire link to an Just In -Microvitec 20" VGA (800 x600 res.) colour monitors.
side, front and back doors. Front and back doors are
IBM pc type computer. Supplied complete with simple working pro. Good SH condition-from £299 -CALL for Into hinged for easy access and all are lockable with
gram and documentation. Requires +12V & + 5V DC to operate. five secure 5 lever barrel locks. The front door
PHILIPS HCS35 (same style as CM8833) attractively styled 14"
BRAND NEW -Order as MY00. Only £49.95 coda (B) is constructed of double walled steel with a
colour monitor with both RGB and standard composite 15.625
See [Link]/data_my00.htm for picture rfull details 'designer style' smoked acrylic front panel to
Khz video inputs via SCART socket and separate phono jacks.
Integral audio power amp and speaker for all audio visual uses. enable status indicators to be seen through the
FLOPPY DISK DRIVES 21
/2"-8" Will connect direct to Amiga and Atari BBC computers. Ideal for all panel, yet remain unobtrusive. Internally the rack
video monitoring /security applications with direct connection features fully slotted reinforced vertical fixing
All units (unless stated) are BRAND NEW or removed from often to most colour cameras. High quality with many features such as members to take the heaviest of 19" rack
brand new equipment and are fully tested, aligned and shipped to front concealed flap controls, VCR correction button etc. Good equipment. The two movable vertical fixing struts
you with a full 90 day guarantee. Call or see our web site
[Link] for over 2000 unlisted drives for spares or repair.
used condition -fully tested -guaranteed only£99 00 (extras available) are pre punched for standard
Dimensions, W14' xH1214' x1514' D. (E) 'cage nuts'. A mains distribution panel internal-
3W Mitsubishi MF355C-L. 1.4 Meg. Laptops only £25.95(B) ly mounted to the bottom rear, provides 8 xIEC 3
3Y. - Mitsubishi MF355C-D. 1.4 Meg. Non laptop £18.95(B) PHIIJPS HCS31 Ultra compact 9" colour video monitor with stan- pin Euro sockets and 1x 13 amp 3 pin switched
514' Teac FD-55GFR 1.2 Meg (for IBM pc's) RFE £18.95(B) dard composite 15.625 Khz video input via SCART socket. Ideal utility socket. Overall ventilation is provided by
514" Teac FD-55F-03-U 720K 40(80 (for BBC's etc) RFE £29.95(B) for all monitoring /security applications High quality, ex-equipment fully louvered back door and double skinned top section '
5ti" BRAND NEW Mitsubishi MF5018 360K £22.95(B) fully tested & guaranteed (possible minor screen bums). In attrac- with top and side louvres. The top panel may be removed for liking
tive square black plastic case measuring W10' x HIO' x 13 1 2 "D.
/ of integral fans to the sub plate etc. Other features include: fitted
Table top case with integral PSU for HH 514' Floppy /HD £29.95(B)
8" Shugart 80W801 8* S refurbished & tested £210.00(E) 240 V AC mains powered. Only £79.00 (D) castors and floor levelers, prepunched utility panel at lower rear for
8" Shugart 810 8' SS HH Brand New £195.00(E) cable /connector access etc. Supplied in excellent, slightly used
KME 10" 15M10009 high definition colour monitors with 0.28' dot condition with keys. Colour Royal blue. External dimensions
8" Shugart 851 8' double sided refurbished & tested £260.00(E) pitch. Superb clarity and modern styling., .. ..
---
8" Mitsubishi M2894-63 double sided NEW £295.00(E) mm=1625H x6350 x603 W. (64" H 25" D x23 3 /"W )
4
Operates from any 15.625 khz sync RGB video!,
8" Mitsubishi M2896-63-02U DS slimline NEW £295.00(E) Sold at LESS than a third of makers price P
source, with RGB analog and composite sync
£245.00 (G)
Dual 8" cased drives with integral power supply 2Mb £499.00(E) such as Atari. Commodore Amiga, Acorn
Archimedes & BBC. Measures only 1314' x 12' x A superb buy at only
HARD DISK DRIVES 21
2 "-14"
/ 11'. Good used condition. Only £125 (E) 42U version of the above only £345 -CALL
214' TOSHIBA MK1002MAV 1.1Gb laptop(12.5 mm H) New £79.95
2Y." TOSHIBA MK2101MAN 2.16 Gb laptop (19 mm H) New £89.50 20" 22" and 26" AV SPECIALS
212 "
/ TOSHIBA MK4309MAT 4.3Gb laptop (8.2 mm H) New £105.00 Superbly made UK manufacture. PIL all solid state colour monitors. 12V BATTERY SCOOP -60% off!!
21/"TOSHIBAMK6409MAV 3.1Gb laptop (12.7 mm H) New£190.00
2 complete with composite video & optional sound input. Attractive A special bulk purchase from a cancelled export order brings you
214' to 3W conversion kit fcr Pc's, complete with connectors £14.95 teak style case. Perfect for Schools, Shops, Disco, Clubs, etc in the most amazing savings on these ultra high spec 12v DC 14 Air
3W FUJI FK-309-26 20mb MFM I/F RFE £59.95 EXCELLENT little used condition with full 90 day guarantee. rechargeable batteries. Made by Hawker Energy Ltd, type SBS15
3W CONNER CP3024 20 mb IDE 1/F (or equiv.) RFE £59.95
3W CONNER CP3044 40 mb IDE I /For equiv.) RFE £69.00 20"....£135 22"....£155 26"....£185 (F) featuring pure lead plates which offer afar superior shelf & guaran-
teed 15 year service life. Fully BT & BS6290 approved. Supplied
314' QUANTUM 40S Prodri vs 42mb CSI I/F, New RFE £49.00 We probably have the largest range of video monitors In BRAND NEW and boxed. Dimensions 200 wide, 137 high, 77 deep.
514' MINISCRIBE 3425 20mb MFM I/F (or equiv.) RFE £49.95
Europe, All sizes and types from 4" to 42" call for info. M6 bolt terminals Fully guaranteed. Current makers price over £70
514' SEAGATE ST-238R 30 mb RLL I/F Refurb £69.95
514" CDC 94205-51 40mb NH MFM I/F RFE tested £69.95
DC POWER SUPPLIES each Our Price £5 each (Cl or 4 for £99 (El
514' HP 97548 850 Mb SCSI RFE tested £99.00
51/ HP C3010 2Gbyte SCSI differential RFE tested
4
8' NEC D2246 85 Mb SMD interface. New
£195.00
£199.00
Virtually every type of power RELAYS -200.000 FROM STOCK
supply you can Imagine. Over
8' FUJITSU M2322K 160Mb SMD I/F RFE tested £195.00 Save efts by choosing your next relay from our Massive Stocks
10,0 0 0 Power Supplies Ex Stock covering types such as Military, Octal, Cradle, Hermetically Sealed,
8' FUJITSU M2392K 2Gb SMD I/F RFE tested £345.00 Call or see our web site.
Many other drives in stock - Shipping on all drives is code (Cl) Continental, Contactors, Time Delay, Reed, Mercury Wetted, Solid
State, Printed Circuit Mounting etc. ,CALL or see our web site
TEST EQUIPMENT & SPECIAL INTEREST ITEMS [Link] for more information. Many obsolete types from
stock. Save £L1T's
MRS.). FA3445ETKL 14" Industrial spec SVGA monitors £245 HP6030A 0-200V DC 0 17 Amps bench power supply £1950
FARNELL 0-60V DC 0 50 Arn s, bench Power Supplies £995 Intel SBC 486/125C08 Enhanced Multibus (MSA) New £1150 COLOUR CCD CAMERAS
FARNELL AP3080 0-30V DC 0 80 Amps, bench Suppy £1850 Nikon HFX-11 (Ephiphot) exposure control unit £1450
IkW to 400 kW -400 lic 3phase power sources -ex stock
IBM 8230 Type 1, Token ring base unit driver
£P0A
£760
PHILIPS PM5518 pro. TV signal generator
Motorola VME Bus Boards & Components List. SAE /CALL
£1250
£P0A
Undoubtedly a miracle of modern technology
our special buying power !A quality product lea-
luring a fully cased COLOUR CCD camera at a
s
4
Wayne Kerr RA200 Audio frequency response analyser £2500 Trlo 0-18 vdc linear, metered 30 amp bench PSU. New £550
IBM 53F5501 Token Ring ICS 20 pod lobe modules £750 Fujitsu M3041R 600 LPM high speed band printer £1950 give away price! Unit features full autolight sensing for
use in low light 8 high light
IBM MAU Token ring distribution panel 8228-23-5050N £95 Fujitsu M3041D 600 LPM printer with network interface £1250
applications. A 10 mm fixed focus
AIM 501 Low distortion Oscillator 9Hz to 330Khz, IEEE £550 Perkin Elmer 299B Infrared spectrophotometer £500
wide angle lens gives excellent focus
ALLGON 8360.11805-1880 MHz hybrid power combiners £250 Perkin Elmer 597 Infrared spectrophotometer £3500
and resolution from close up to long
Trend OSA 274 Data Analyser with G703(2M) 64 i/o £P0A VG Electronics 1035 TELETEXT Decoding Margin Meter £3250
range. The composite video output will
Marconi 6310 Programmable 2to 22 GHz sweep generator £6500 LightBand 60 output high spec 2u rack mount Video VDA's £495
connect to any composite monitor or TV
Marconi 2022C 10KHz-1GHz RF signal generator £1550 Sekonic SD 150H 18 channel digital Hybrid chart recorder £1995 (via SCART socket) and most video
Marconi 2030 opt 03 10KHz-1.3 GHz signal generator,New £4995 138K 2633 Microphone pre amp £300
recorders. Unit runs from 12V DC so
HP1650B Logic Analyser £3750 Taylor Hobson Tallysurf amplifier /recorder £750
HP3781A Pattern generator & HP3782A Error Detector £P0A ADC SS200 Carbon dioxide gas detector /monitor £1450 ideal for security & portable applica-
tions where mains power not available.
HP6621A Dual Programmable GPIB PSU 0-7 V 160 watts £1800 BBC AM20/3 PPM Meter (Ernest Tumer) +drive electronics £75
Overall dimensions 66 mm wide x 117 deep x 43 high. Supplied
HP6264 Rack mount variable 0-20V 0 20A metered PSU £675 ANRITSU 9654A Optical DC-2.5G/b waveform monitor £5650
BRAND NEW & fully guaranteed with user data, 100's of applica-
HP54121A DC to 22 GHz four channel test set £P0A ANRITSU MS900181 0.6-1.7 uM optical spectrum analyser £P0A
tions including Security, Home Video, Web TV. Web Cams etc. etc.
HP8130A opt 020 300 MHz pulse generator. GPIB etc £7900 ANRITSU ML93A optical power meter £990
HP Al. AO 8pen HPGL high speed drum plotters -from £550 ANRITSU Fibre optic characteristic test set £P0A Web ref =LK33 ONLY £99.00 or 2 for £180.00 (s)
HP DRAFTMASTER 18pen high speed plotter £750 R&S FTDZ Dual sound unit £650
EG+G Brookcleal 95035C Precision lock in amp
View Eng. Mod 1200 computerised inspection system
£1800
£P0A
R&S SBUF-El Vision modulator
WILTRON 6630B 12.4 /20GHz RF sweep generator
£775
£5750 SOFTWARE SPECIALS
Sony DXC-3000A High quality CCD colour TV camera
Keithley 590 CV capacitor /voltage analyser
£995
CP0A
TEK 2445 150 MHz 4trace oscilloscope
TEK 2465 300 Mhz 300 MHz oscilloscope rack mount
£1250
£1955
NT4 WorkStation, complete with service pack 3
Racal ICR40 dual 40 channel voice recorder system £3750 TEK TDS380 400Mhz digital realtime. disk drive, FFT etc £2900 and licence -OEM packaged. ONLY £89.00 ag)
Fiskers 45KVA 3 ph On Line UPS -New batteries £9500 TEK TDS524A 500Mhz digital realtime .colour display etc £5100 ENCARTA 95 -CDROM, Not the latest -but at this price t £7.95
Emerson AP130 2.5KVA industrial [Link] £2100 HP3585A Opt 907 20Hz to 40 Mhz spectrum analyser £3950 DOS 5.0 on 314" disks with concise books clw °Base . £4.95
Mann Tally MT645 High speed line printer £2200 PHILIPS PW1730/10 60KV XRAY generator 8 accessories £P0A Windows for Workgroups 3.11+ Dos 6.22 on 3.5" disks £55.00
Intel SBC 486/133SE Multibus 486 system. 8Mb Ram £945 CLAUDE LYONS 12A 240V single phase auto volt. regs £325 Wordperfect 6for DOS supplied on 31,.' disks with manual £24.95
Siemens K4400 64Kb to 140Mb dernux analyser £2950 CLAUDE LYONS 100A 240/419V 3phase auto, volt. regs £2900 shipping charges for software is code B

I
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M prices for UK Mankind. UK customers add 17.5% VAT to TOTAL order arnotnt. Minimum order £10. &re Fide account orders accepted frcei Goveirrnent Schmitt
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CIRCLE NO. 117 ON REPLY CARD

 NEW PRODUCTS

Official Wireless Application

Protocol: The Complete Standard guard and gold-clad double-layer temperature. Turn-on losses are
contacts. The contact arrangements reduced by platinum diffused fast-

with Searchable CD-ROM are optionally available in normally

open and normally closed variants,
recovery diodes with soft recovery
characteristics. The integrated IGBT
and are rated 5V DC at lmA to 30V brake-chopper with its associated
DC at 0.1mA. It is available in standard flywheel diode can be used with an
Available for the first time in book and ', form, the and backward lever positions and as a external resistor for dynamic braking
pin plunger type. These options allow in the regenerative mode. An NTC
complete, unabridged standard of the breakthrough fine-tuning for stroke setting. There is a temperature sensor lets the user
wireless technology standard. The Wireless choice of four actuators. The switch is measure the temperature inside the
UL and CSA approved and is suitable module and on the surface of the
Application Protocol (WAP) is the first open, for vending machines, photocopiers. DCB substrate. Dimensions are 82 by
licence-free standard which allows for the first time printers and pinball machines. 37.4mm and they can be mounted
Matsushita Electric Works with two screws to a heatsink.
any brand of wireless device to talk to another Tel 01908 231555 GD Rectifiers
across all networks Enq No 531 Tel: 01444 243452
Enq No 532
worldwide. The potential
Inverter modules
for new applications Relay for AC
Converter-brake-inverter modules for

1, ,LE, Official using this protocol is

enormous. Unwired
AC input voltages from 110 to 550V
three phase have been introduced by
Teledyne has introduced a PCB and
surface mountable AC solid state
lxys and are available from GD relay using its Powertherm system.

Wireless Planet is the firm that

developed WAP with
Rectifiers. The converter section uses The LR1200480D40 DC controlled
relay can control up to 40A at a line

Application
voltage of 480V AC. Features include
AT&TWireless, Motorola, zero voltage turn-on through back-to-

protoc° I
Nokia, and Ericsson. In back SCR output switches capable of
1200V peak transients, logic
this, the first of athree- compatible control and 4kV rms
book series on WAP, isolation between input and output.
The Coutpk.
›te Voltage and current ratings are from
eondard with they provide the definitive 240 to 480V AC and 25 to 40A. A
'searche le reference of the triac output version rated at 10 and
CP-fe e 25A is also available. There are three
standard. CD-ROM control types — 90 to 280V AC input.
provides the unabridged 3to 32V DC input and random turn-
on DC control for phase control and
specification for quick PWM use. Applications include
reference 1200 to 1600V planar glass- heater controls, light dimmer controls
passivated rectifier diodes. The IGBT and process controls. It comes in a
inverter stage consists of six plastic package measuring slightly
UK Price: £45.50 Europe £41.00 ROW £49.50 NPT-IGBTs. with breakdown voltages less than 3.5 by 2.8cm.
of 600 and 1200V and current ratings Teledyne
from 4.5 to 25A and 2.5 to 17A Tel: 01236 452124
** Price includes delivery and package respectively at 90 C case Enq No 533

Return to Jackie Lowe, Room 1333, Quadrant House,

The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 SAS

Please supply the following title:

Official Wireless Application Protocol

Toto

Name

Address

Placement routeing tool

Zuken-Redac has announced aversion of PR Editor, its placement and
Postcode routeing tool for Mentor Graphics' Board Station. Operating under Unix
and Windows NT, it can cross probe between logical and physical
Telephone components to provide autorouteing directly from a logical schematic.
The splash and route feature automatically pushes aside components
Method of payment (please circle) and reroutes them as they are moved. The tool can automatically route
through dense areas such as connectors and ball-grid arrays by
Access/Mastercard/Visa/Cheque/PO switching to free angle mode. It can create partial power planes of
arbitrary shape and automatically eliminate isolated areas. Constraints
Cheques should be made payable to
defined by the engineer in Board Architect are automatically read and
Reed Business Information obeyed. Interactive tools can solve high-end routing problems such as
matched delays and crosstalk. It supports area fills, micro-vias and HDI
Credit card no designs.
Zuken-Redec
Card expiry date Tel 01454 207800
Enq No 534
Signed

476 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 ithout an engineering degree, a pile of
money, or an infinite amount of time, the
revised 289-page Interfacing with C is worth
serious consideration by anyone interested in
controlling equipment via the PC. Featuring
extra chapters on Z transforms, audio
processing and standard programming
structures, the new Interfacing with C will be
especialy useful to students and engineers
interested in ports, transducer interfacing.
analogue-to-digital conversion, convolution,
digital filters, Fourier transforms and Kalman
filtering. Full of tried and tested interfacing
routines.
Price £14.99.

Listings on disk — over 50k of C source code

dedicated to interfacing. This 3.5in PC format
disk includes all the listings mentioned in the
book Interfacing with C. Note that this is an
upgraded disk containing the original
Interfacing with C routines rewritten for Turbo
C++ Ver.3
Price £15, or £7.50 when purchased with the
above book.

Especialy useful for students, the original

Interfacing with C, written for Microsoft C
Version 5.1, is still available at the price of
£7.50. Phone 0181 652 3614 for bulk
purchase price.

-T
-

Post your completed order form to:- How to pay

Jackie Lowe, Electronics World, Room L333, J Ienclose acheque/bank drat/ for

Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey, SW 5AS (payable to Reed Business Information)

Please charge my credit/charge card

Please send me Price Qty Total J Mastercard J American Express j Visa J Diners Club

Enhanced Interfacing with C book @ £14.99 £ Credit Card No: Expiry Date:

Enh. Interfacing with C book @ +disk £22.49 £

Interfacing with C disk @ £15.00 £
Signature of Cardholder
Original Interfacing with C book @ £7.50 £ Send my order to: (please use capitals)

Postage +Packing per order UK £3.50 £ Name

Postage +Packing per order Eur £7.00 £ Address

Postage +Packing per order UK £12.00 £

Total £ Post Code Tel:

Fax: Date

Please allow up to 28 days for delmery

 BOOK TO BUY NEW PRODUCTS

Frequency Synthesis
by Phase Lock Chip for battery the component outside the circuit
Frequency synthesis is an important element in the design of all This is done by attaching a test
management socket to the prototyping adapter and
communications equipment, but has taken on new life recently
with the advent of new hand-held wireless devices. This Dallas has announced a battery- wiring the adapter to atest
management chip. The DS2438 instrument.
technology not only allows wireless transmitters to change
stores battery-specific data and Emulation Technology
frequencies quickly, but also gives high reliability and security in
tracks battery parameters, including Tel 001 408 982 0660
transmissions. Thus, mobile devices such as cell phones can
temperature, voltage, current and Enq No 535
utilise this technology to change frequencies until a suitable one remaining charge. Once inside the
is found for the location in which it is being used. battery pack, it can identify the pack Dual hot-swap
• Emphasises the fundamentals and configure itself to charge and
of frequency synthesis monitor the battery. Each chip gives controller
• Based on a course that Dr. its pack a unique 64-bit net address Linear Technology has introduced the
Egan has been teaching for over so multiple battery packs can be LTC1647 dual hot-swap controller
wired to one bus but addressed with independent inputs to control the
20 years at Santa Clara
individually. supply to modular components from
University
Dallas Semiconductor the same supply or to handle supply
• Provides a link to the Wiley ftp Tel: 001 972 371 6085 sequencing of multiple voltages. Each
site for the use of associated Enq No 534 channel accepts supply voltages from
MATLAB exercises 2.7 to 16.5V and provides inrush-
• Taken together with Phase Prototyping current limiting, electronic circuit
Lock Basics by the same author. breaker and afault flag. The
adapter boards controlled turn-on from independent
the two books provide readers
Emulation Technology has inputs gives the flexibility to control
with complete coverage of the
announced ball-grid array and chip- device bay applications or multiple
field.
scale package prototyping adapter supply systems such as disk-drive
CONTENTS Introduction: The boards. They let designers add 1.27. arrays. The device is for multiple
Elementary Phase-Locked 1and 0.8mm pitch BGAs to loads or multiple supply applications
Synthesizer; Modulation. prototype breadboards. For testing. and comes in SO-8 or 16-pin SSOP
Sidebands and Noise Spectrums: designers plug the adapter onto a packages. The SO-8 parts have two
Frequency Dividers: Phase prototyping board with a 2.54mm on pins for controlling two loads from
Detectors: Higher Order Loops; centre grid and surface mount the IC the same input supply. They support
to the board to make the prototype automatic retry or latch the supplies
Sampling Effects: Architectures;
ready to operate. Extra jumper pads off if there is an overcurrent fault. The
Large-Signal Performance,
are included on both sides for 16-pin SSOP version separates the
Natural Acquisition: Acquisition custom wiring and additional fault and on pins to allow automatic
Aids: Spectral Purity: Computer circuitry. Using it as atest socket, retry or latch off the supplies. •
Aided Engineering. engineers can remove a problem Linear Technology
BGA or CSP component from the Tel: 01276 677676
production board, install the Enq No 537
WC Price: £64.00 Europe £66.50 ROW £69.00 component on the adapter and test

** Price includes delivery and package **

Return to Jackie Lowe, Room L333, Quadrant House,
The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 SAS

Please supply the following title:

Frequency Synthesis by Phase Lock

Total

Name

Address

Backplane architecture
Radstone has announced PPzero. an architecture that provides peer
Postcode multi-processing between VME boards via a PCI secondary bus
concurrently with VME data transfers. The hardware and software
Telephone components complement the firm's PowerPC single board computers,
and can be retrofitted to products in the field. Hardware components
Method of payment (please circle) extend the PCIbus from a PowerPC board, via the standard VME PO
connector, to the backplane letting multiple VME boards communicate via
Access/Mastercard/Visa/Cheque/PO PCI. The 6U PMC carrier cards also interface to PPzero. Software
components maintain the VME backplane driver interface standards for
Cheques should be made payable to PCI transfers between peer processors. Vxworks support is available and
Reed Business Information Lynxos support is planned. Many Cots software drivers, developed for PCI
desktop systems, are directly applicable to PMC format products, giving
Credit card no support for integrators. Custom system functions can also be absorbed
into PMC cards.
Card expiry date Redstone Technology
Tel 01327 359444
Enq No 536
Signed

ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 + postage & packaging
Love
vinylP
Your Complete

If you treasure your vinyl collection,

this book is for you. Featuring articles
from the pages of the US magazine
Audio Amateur and other sources, it
contains absolutely everything the
serious LP music collector needs to

articles! get the most out of both vintage

records and the highest quality new
pressings.

Articles feature:
• Cleaning discs
• How to build acleaning machine
• Calibrating and maintaining your tonearm
Please send me copies of The LP is Back! and cartridge
• Equipment that will improve the quality of
Name
long-play record listening
Address
Collected from the high point of this old-new again
technology, 'The LP is Back!' brings a wealth of information
to help you keep your existing equipment in top form and
help you understand and appreciate the best in new products
Post code available from cartridges to turntables. Published 1999,
160 pp., 8in by 10 1/
2in, softbound.

Daytime phone number

Ienclose acheque for

Fully inclusive prices:
UK £11.49
Or debit my Visa Master Card (tick one) Europe £11.99
ROW £13.98
Card number
How to order:
Expiry date _ /_ _ Post the coupon to:
the LP is back, Electronics World, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey
SM2 5AS, or fax 0208 652 8111,
Card-holder's signature:
or e-mail [Link]

Please make cheques payable to Reed Business Information

 alifetime in electronics
John Linsley-Hood recalls the emergence of the IC and his first
experiences with PLLs, the synchrodyne and cassette recorders.
Rounding off this final article, John also shares his thoughts on how
digital technology is changing the face of electronics.

.r
here is a story, probably apoc- of other 'application specific' devices. If the ratict detector or the Foster-Seeley
ryphal, about a semiconductor one of these will do the job, fine. It will discriminator, suffered from afair mea-
manufacturer in the USA that be well designed and bug-free. sure of distortion. They produced
made components for electronic calcu- On the other hand, most ICs have pin between 0.5% and 2% depending on how
lators, and also made the complete cal- connections at 0.1 inch spacings and this well one had done the tuning. Admittedly
culators. makes for avery congested board layout. this was better than the typical 2-5% fig-
It is said that the company was Bread-board layouts based on copper ure for the average AM demodulator, but
annoyed to find that other manufacturers strip-board drilled at tenth inch spacings it wasn't very good in comparison with
in areas of low labour costs were buying tend to look pretty scruffy and may not the 0.01% figure beginning to be expect-
their components, assembling them, and work as well as they should —especially ed from the audio amplifier.
then selling the final calculators at a if HF signals are involved. Iplayed with phase-locked loops and
lower price than they could make them An answer to this problem, though this their variants over a period of some
for themselves. may appear somewhat daunting to the years, making gradual improvements in
The company's response was to re- amateur, is to equip yourself with the one way or another. Ifound that the cru-
design their calculator so that it just con- wherewithal to print, etch and drill your cial factor in FM radio applications is the
sisted of one calculator IC and adisplay own printed circuit boards. Doing so will linearity of the voltage-controlled oscil-
device. They would have put the display also allow you to make up circuits such lator. Ishowed two very linear designs
on the IC as well but for the fact that it as 10.7MHz FM IF amplifiers, where in Wireless World in 1975 and 1979.
would then be too small for the user to stray capacitances and inductances The first of these designs used amul-
read. would otherwise lead to instability and tivibrator layout. It had asplendidly lin-
In anutshell, that is the story of the IC impaired performance ear control voltage/output frequency
—that the smaller the chip the lower its relationship, but —as is usually the case
manufacturing cost, and the more one A phase-locked loop FM tuner in RC oscillator layouts — it was some-
can get on the chip the lower the associ- With the advent of small, loss-cost, plas- what noisy due to frequency jitter.
ated labour costs will be. The impact of tic-encapsulated junction transistors, the The later design used alinearised 'var-
this was brought home to me recently design of simple and drift-free FM tuners icap' LC circuit and was quieter. Both of
by the announcement in atechnical brief was amuch easier task than it had been these circuits gave less than 0.1% dis-
that all the electronics for a complete in the late 1940s. A growing interest in tortion at ±75kHz deviation. This was
colour TV could now be provided on a the 'phase-locked loop' prompted me to not quite in the same leagtm as the better
single IC. have another look at designing an FM audio power amplifiers of that period,
This is both good news and bad news system. The PLL seemed to me to be but alot better than the average run of
for the electronics enthusiast wanting to ideal for use as a low-distortion FM FM tuners.
do a bit of DIY design. On the credit demodulator, Fig. 1.
side, there is alarge number of general Most of the early FM demodulators. A P1.1 stereo decoder
purpose ICs such as op-amp gain blocks such as the 'slope detector' — a fancy A further use for the phase-locked loop
and voltage regulators, as well as ahost name for aslightly off-tuned circuit —or is to extract asingle frequency sinusoidal
signal from anoisy background which
MIXER (PSD) might otherwise swamp it.
A very good example of this kind of
RF input use is in the GE/Zenith technique for
AM decoding a stereo-encoded FM signal
LPF Output
into its separate left and right-hand com-
Fig. 1. The phase-locked loop
ponents. In order to do this it is neces-
allowed designers to produce
sary to regenerate a small amplitude
FM radios with output that
19kHz 'pilot tone' from which afurther
could classed as VCO
38kHz 'sub-carrier' can be constructed.

ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 PEOPLE IN ELECTRONICS

The signal carried by this modulated engineer. My need at the time was for a connecting lead, and how quickly the
sub-carrier can then be recombined very high input impedance amplifier charge on the gate can change. These
with the original 'mono' mixture to for use in an atmospheric pressure ion- factors depend on the resistance, induc-
give apair of stereo signals. isation chamber. A prototype arrange- tance and capacitance of the system.
An elegant, albeit somewhat com- ment of such achamber using asub- From the viewpoint of the circuit
plex, circuit for doing this, which used miniature electrometer valve performed designer, the effect of this is that
aPLL to extract the 38kHz carrier, was fairly well but the circuit was highly MOSFETs are exceedingly fast in
described by Portus and Haywood in microphonic — a bad defect in any operation, and can burst into oscillation
Wireless World in September 1970. industrial equipment. with very little provocation unless the
This was obviously a good thing. It The best answer to this problem circuit and its layout are carefully cho-
wasn't long before an IC that could do appeared to be to use an n-channel sen.
the whole lot on one chip —along the MOSFET solid-state triode. In 1960 or
lines proposed by Pand H —was avail- thereabouts, Plessey Semiconductors The simple 30W integrated
able off the shelf. That IC was offered acommercial example of one amplifier
Motorola's MC1310P. of these. It had an extremely high input My 75W amplifier had proved exceed-
impedance and was mechanically ingly popular. However, anumber of
Discrete ideas robust. my friends had commented that while
My interest in this topic was aroused However, these MOSFETs carried a it was undoubtedly avery nice ampli-
because Ihad designed alow distortion warning that gate voltages in excess of fier, it was all abit complicated. What
PLL FM receiver for my own use and I ±I5V would cause immediate destruc- they would really like was an 'inte-
wanted astereo decoder to go with it. tion of the device. In reality though, grated' — i.e. preamplifier plus power
Motorola's IC version of the Pand H this was not too difficult aconstraint. amplifier — design with an output of
design had clear benefits. However, I about 30W per channel.
had asneaking feeling that the perfor- Nylon shirts and absent earths A simplified layout using op-amps as
mance of the decoder might be Only one of my colleagues had aprob- the preamplifier gain blocks and power
improved if the signal channel could be lem with blown gates. It turned out not Darlington transistors as the output
handled entirely by discrete compo- to be due, as we had first supposed, to devices was published in Hi-Fi News
nents. In particular, Iwanted to use a electrical discharges generated by his in January to March of 1980. This was
'sample-and-hold' decoder arrange- nylon shirt. Rather it was because he after my friends had tried out the pro-
ment using junction FETs as the had undone the earth lead from his totype, and concluded that it met their
switches in the sampling circuit. mains-voltage powered soldering iron needs.
The final layout was described in for reasons that appeared good at the Sadly, this design soon got into the
Electronics Today in 1987 and 1990. It time. As aresult of this, his soldering hands of the hi-fi cognoscenti, who com-
used asteep-cut input filter of my own iron bit carried agate-destroying poten- pared it with the very best they could
design to remove the noise components tial of 120V RMS. find. They observed that the very best —
which might otherwise be demodulated The MOSFET is typically adevice in at ten times the price — were actually
by harmonics of the 38kHz sub-carrier. which aconducting layer, the 'gate', somewhat better.
Overall input-to-output linearity was has been deposited on the surface of an There were some things that could be
better than 0.05% at IV RMS. For 'intrinsic', i.e. undoped, layer of sili- done to improve the basic 30W design.
those who like 'tweaking', Ialso pro- con, the 'substrate'. It is separated from Of these, the major one was to replace
vided aphase adjustment control that it by athin insulating layer. the output Darlington transistors with
allowed more precise synchronisation If avoltage is applied to the gate it power MOSFETs. This made avery nice
of the switching waveform in relation will induce electrostatic charges in this sounding amplifier. Ihave shown the
to the composite audio signal. layer. Now current can flow across it revised output stage circuit in Fig. 2.
In this circuit — or in any other from 'source' to 'drain'. Using TL071 op-amps. instead of the
adjustable stereo decoder — the best The speed at which conduction original 741s in the preamplifier cir-
stereo channel separation can be found occurs following the application of a cuitry added afinal touch. Isometimes
by adjusting the circuit while listening charge to the gate depends on how thought that if some eccentric burglar
to audience applause. Ideally, the quickly current can flow along the gate were to steal all my audio amplifiers,
applause should appear to subtend an
arc slightly greater than that between
What is a phase-locked loop?
the loudspeakers.
If adual-trace oscilloscope is avail- he PLL is beguilingly simple — superficially at least.
able, the same adjustment can be made. If aphase-sensitive detector is fed with two sinusoidal inputs, then the detector's output
on any stereo signal, by displaying the will be acomposite 'sum and difference' frequency signal.
L and R outputs on the X and Y axes Generally, one of the PLL's input signals is derived from some external source and the
of the instrument. In this case, the other is derived from avoltage-controlled oscillator or VCO. The control voltage for the
greatest separation is indicated by the VCO is derived from the loop output.
maximum roundness of the resultant The phase-sensitive detector output is filtered to remove the 'sum' frequency signal. An
Lissajous figure. interesting situation arises if these two input signals should momentarily be at the same
frequency. In this case, if the external signal is large enough, the loop will 'lock', and the
MOSFET audio power VCO will be forced into frequency
That my feet should take me into this Frequency synchronism with the input signal.
field was partly as aresult of technical
modulated Phase Low-pass If the oscillator has alinear rela-
input detector filter tionship between the input control
curiosity, and partly as a result of
requests from friends. voltage and output frequency, then
Ifirst encountered the MOSFET as a Voltage the PLL will provide a linear — i.e.
very high input impedance device controlled distortion free — means of demodu-
VCO output Control vol age
when wearing my 'nine-to-five' hat as oscillator lating an input FM signal.
aphysicist cum industrial electronics

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 481

PEOPLE IN ELECTRONICS

Fig. 2. Revised 11.H 30W

amplifier using MOSFETs
instead of bipolar transistors,
as in the original design. This
represents asignificant
improvement, made possible
by the introduction of
MOSFETs.

Loudspeaker

list at DC

this design —but direct coupled, and fed Cassette recorders The other was to provide a suitably
from asymmetrical pair of power supply Some time in the 1960s, Philips intro- modified record/replay response curve
lines —is what I'd make to fill the gap. duced the 'Compact Cassette'. It was prin- to give an overall frequency response
cipally intended as aportable recording that was somewhere near flat. The cir-
HF equalisation medium for secretarial and dictation uses. cuitry Iused is shown in Fig 3.
Any amplifier system using closed- In terms of simplicity in use, the tape An almost universal commercial
loop negative feedback is prone to cassette offered many advantages over answer to the need for alow-noise cas-
instability unless the loop gain is very the existing reel-to-reel tape recorder. sette replay system was to use 'Dolby
low, or the loop phase shifts are small. However, it was not intended as any- B', which involves record pre-empha-
Much of the art of the amplifier design- thing approaching a hi-fi recording sis/replay de-emphasis. This technology
er is concerned with achieving ade- machine. This limitation was implicit in was not available to the amateur though.
quate levels of loop negative feedback the tape track widths and recording You needed aDolby licence. A Dolby
while preserving a sufficient loop speeds of 0.6Imm and 4.76cm/s chosen IC was later offered by National
phase margin. for this new medium Semiconductors however.
The classic method of meeting these, These restrictions did not prevent cir- My answer, at least in the medium
sometimes conflicting, requirements is cuit and equipment designers from term, was to adopt 90ps equalisation, as
to slug the major gain element with a exploring the cassette's possibilities as a later recommended for 'chrome' tapes.
capacitor. This produces what is called music recording system though — with This pushed the standard ferric tapes a
single-pole 'dominant lag' HF com- particular reference to in-car use. By bit harder, but Ifelt the tape coating for-
pensation. 1974, cassette recorder mechanisms mulations then available were better than
Iprefer to do this compensation by complete with record/replay and erase those around when the record/replay
applying a capacitor across two gain heads, and a simple electronic speed time-constants were decreed.
stages so that this part of the circuit control system, were available for use by Iwas so pleased with what I'd done
acts as an active integrator. the DIY enthusiasts. that Iinvited Wireless World to come
Unfortunately, this technique only Ihad aperfectly satisfactory car radio, and listen to the results. My invitation
works if the high-frequency gain of the which Ihad no wish to replace, and a was accepted. Obviously the magazine
circuit is high. This condition is more high-quality, commercial, 15in/s reel-to- liked my recorder design too. It was pub-
easily met by using power MOSFETs reel tape machine — which was a bit lished in the May to June 1976 issues.
with effective gain transition frequen- expensive on tapes and awkward to use.
cies of the order of hundreds of mega- However, the possibility of using acas- Mechanical problems
hertz, rather than by bipolar junction sette recorder to save some of the splen- Having the article published was grati-
transistors whose gain transition fre- did music now available from the BBC fying at the time, but any mechanical
quencies are less than atenth of this. FM stereo broadcasts was an exciting system is short-lived in comparison
In the hope of encouraging more of one, so Idecided I'd have ago. with any wholly electronic one.
my peers to use power MOSFETs in Ignoring imperfections in the tape In the case of the cassette recorder,
their audio amplifier designs, I pub- transport mechanisms — which you the problems are general wear and tear
lished several further circuits of this couldn't do much about, there were on the heads and the tape transport
type in Wireless World namely in the two main problems to be solved. One mechanism. You could replace the
April to August, 1982 and June 1993 was to design asufficiently low-noise heads, but the rest of the gear — espe-
issues. Ialso had designs in Hi-Fi News, replay system for amplifying the cially with the relatively low cost mech-
December 1980, and in Electronics minute signal generated by the tape anisms used at the time — began to
Today, June 1984, May 1989. creeping slowly across the replay head. show its age after adecade or so.

482 ELECTRONICS WORLD june 2000

 PEOPLE IN ELECTRONICS

Also, with increasing expectations of ty to cut out howls. This was published Dad's loft
performance, the better cassette in Wireless World in the January to Clearing out my father's loft, Ifound
recorders were now three-head designs. March 1986 issues. Although this circuit my grandfather's old 1938 'Philco' four
With these, the individual heads could be worked as Iintended, it was somewhat valve table radio, with three wave-
optimised for their respective functions. complicated to tune, requiring atwo- bands and a3.5 watt output. This was
Finally, the demand for better tape knob (frequency and gain) approach. still in quite presentable condition, but
speed control, with less wow and flutter
led to better drive mechanisms. They
had twin drive-motor, 'dual-capstan' lay- GET EXPERT HELP!
outs. Even crystal-stabilised speed con-
trol was adopted for many of the better BUY TWO OF JOHN LINSLEY
machines. Sadly though, this sort of elec-
tro-mechanical elaboration lies in the HOOD'S BOOKS FOR THE
sphere of the large manufacturer rather
than that of the enthusiastic amateur. FANTASTIC PRICE OF JUST
Alternative radio systems
£38.99 -fully inclusive!
In the 'superheterodyne' receiver, the Leading expert in the audio field
incoming antenna signal is converted John Linsley-Hood presents the wisdom of
into asignal of adifferent intermediate his lifetime in electronics in two excellent
frequency in order to obtain the neces- books.
sary gain and selectivity. This is by far
the most common technique used in Priced at £25.00, Audio Electronics covers
radio receivers. audio techniques and equipment and
Ihave made a number of superhet explains the role that electronics plays in
designs for interest, to try out some new
sound reproduction. This book is a must for
idea, or to try to cure one or other of the
anyone involved in designing, adapting and
intrinsic drawbacks of the superhet
technique. Iam not alone in this quest. using digital and analogue audio
Over the past sixty years or so, anum- equipment.
ber of interesting ideas have emerged,
one of which is the `synchrodyne'. Valve & Transistor Audio Amplifiers
In this, the local-oscillator frequency normally costs £19.99. This work covers
is chosen to be identical to that of the everything from classic amplifiers to new
incoming signal. In this way, the output designs using the latest components. ELECTRONICS
of the mixer — which will be the sum
and difference frequency components
Offer closes 31 December 2000 so order
of the two signals —will be asignal at
now and rely on John Linsley Hood to keep
twice the signal frequency, and one at
you ahead of the rest!
the signal frequency itself.
If the 2f component is removed by fil- Return to Jackie Lowe, Room 1514,
tration, then what is left is the wanted Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton,
signal. The selectivity of the receiver, Surrey, SM2 5AS
its ability to discriminate between the
wanted signal and one at aclosely adja-
cent frequency, can be achieved by AF Please supply the following titles:
filtration. Audio Electronics/Valve & Transistor Audio Amplifiers
The most immediate snag with this Total
scheme is that the local-oscillator signal
has to be in frequency and phase syn-
chronism with the input one. If it isn't Name
at the same frequency, the output is a
piercing howl, and this poses asevere
Address
demand for frequency stability.
The 'homodyne' attempts to solve
this last problem by extracting the
local-oscillator waveform from the
incoming carrier by clipping off the
Postcode
modulation. But this ignores the addi-
tional requirement that the local oscil-
lator signal must be at phase quadrature Telephone
to the input and this is difficult to main-
Method of payment (please circle) Access/Mastercard/Visa/Cheque/PO
tain.
My interest in the synchrodyne was Cheques should be made payable to Reed Business Information
prompted by the work Ihad done on
phase-locked loops, as a means ot
Credit card no
demodulating FM signals. Feeling that
this answered the synchrodyne problem. Card expiry date
Idesigned a 'phase-locked synchro- Signed
dyne' with an off-station muting facili-

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

 PEOPLE IN ELECTRONICS

long since defunct. pressures means that you can do what schemes they tried before they got one
It struck me that it would be an inter- you think best, without having an which worked! I'm giving a brief
esting exercise to rebuild it using mod- accountant or marketing person breath- account of the system, if only because
ern components, such as dual-gate ing down your neck. it marks —along with other digital sys-
MOSFETs for RF, mixer and IF stages, The awareness of the difficulties tems —the ultimate parting of the ways
and agroup of fast op-amps to provide involved in designing radios is not between the amateur and the commer-
low distortion AM demodulation and restricted to the perfectionist amateur in cial manufacturer.
delayed amplified AGC. his shed. It has troubled some of the
A simple audio output stage gave 8.5 most prestigious of the broadcasting Thoughts on digital radio
watts at less than 0.05% distortion. I and research organisations in Europe. The major benefit from digital audio
was pleased with its performance, and One of the main difficulties is the systems is their greater freedom from
Ipublished the circuit details in the poor performance of the VHF/FM interference. The trade-offs are rigid
October 1986 issue of Wireless World. broadcasting system when listened to limits on bandwidth and distortion, and
It is, Iam happy to say, in daily use, in a car. Here, the target is that of an enormous increase in the complexi-
mainly for Radio Four news broadcasts matching the performance of the com- ty of the means.
on 198kHz. pact disc as an in-car entertainment In the case of the digital-radio receiv-
Although Ihave played with anum- medium. This has resulted in the er, the signal is converted into digital
ber of electronic systems — mainly 'Eureka 147' proposal. form before broadcasting. It is then
those with audio applications, and Eureka was the name rather opti- transmitted by aform of FM known as
almost exclusively as an amateur —my mistically given to the ensuing joint 'quadrature phase-shift keying' —cho-
real love is still radio, if only, perhaps, research programme. The number sen for its freedom from 'bit' errors.
because it is so much more difficult to 147' is not explained in the literature, The broadcast bandwidth allocated to
do it right. The absence of commercial but Isuspect it refers to the number of the broadcaster is then divided into ran-
domly-allocated segments. These are
then re-assembled by the receiver to
form the programme —or collection of
data —wanted by the user. This process
is called 'de-multiplexing'.
OV Since the signal had been converted
into adigital form before it was broad-
o cast, none of the radio receivers Ihave
made, or have described above, will
Fig. 3. When
make anything of them. It is like
designing the
expecting aCD player to extract music
electronics for a
from afive-inch gramophone record. I
cassette
now find myself on the same shore
recorder, there
line, beached by the receding technical
were two mains
tide, as those who failed to adapt to the
challenges. One
revolution of the solid state.
was amplifying
the tiny signal Ishall, of course, get a'digital' radio,
from the head but it will be of commercial origin, for
without too the same reasons that Ihave acom-
much noise and mercial CD player, rather than aDIY
the other was job.
trying to get a Meanwhile, Iafford myself a wry
fiat response smile on seeing another digital radio
from the system, described by Slifkin and col-
combined leagues in the October 1999 issue of
record and Electronics World. In it, the incoming
replay system. radio signal is amplified, bandwidth
These two limited and converted into digital form,
circuits were my from when on the processing is done in
answer to these the digital domain, by software.
problems. Luckily, writing software is some-
thing that the young amateur can do
with his 'PC' in his bedroom just as
well as the big boys —apart from the
fact that unscrambling the random mul-
tiplex of the Eureka coding may prove
difficult.
Ialso note that while digital may be
better, the analogue is often a lot
cheaper. Take the compact cassette
versus the recordable Mini Disc for
example. Idon't know how dear the
Eureka 147 will be, but Iwould guess
it will be alot more expensive than the
little 'trannie' in the garage or bed-
room. So, maybe, analogue electronics
is not quite dead, yet. •

484 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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 D
espite the recent advances in
electronic circuitry, one peren-
nial audio problem still remains.
How do you make an economical audio
amplifier that doesn't suffer from
crossover distortion?
In this article, I outline a design
method that pushes all crossover prod-
ucts below audibility. The method is
illustrated using aspecific design exam-
ple for a 100W power amplifier. As a
bonus, this improvement can be
obtained by simple modification to the
standard generic amplifier circuit.
Ican hear aclear difference between
Class-A and Class-B amplifiers, espe-
cially when they are operated at low
levels. These differences disappear
though with the design technique out-
lined. At low levels, where crossover
effects make themselves most apparent,
none of my hi-fi buff friends can tell the

Anew 100W
difference between asolid-state single-
ended Class-A amplifier and the design
presented here.

The problem is simple

The basic problem can be stated quite

Class-13 topology
simply. In order to make an economi-
cally viable amplifier, you have to oper-
ate the output stage in Class-B. This
requires output devices that conduct on
alternate signal polarities.
Figure 1 shows the Class B output
stage in its simplest form. It consists of
a pair of complementary transistors,
operated as emitter followers.
In a conventional Class-B amplifier, distortion rises with The signal is applied simultaneously
frequency. But it's at higher frequencies, where the ear is to both transistor bases. When the signal
goes positive it turns the upper transistor
most sensitive, that you want the best performance to on which then provides the output volt-
age across the load. Similarly on nega-
suppress the undesirable influences of cross-over
tive excursions the lower transistor con-
switching. Russell Breden believes his reconfigured 100W ducts and provides signal to the load.
The problem is that the signal tra-
Class-B design solves that problem, and is far more verses the non-linear portion of both
effective at minimising crossover distortion. transistors' characteristics. The aptly

ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 AUDIO DESIGN

+ve
named cross-over distortion that results
contains alarge number of harmonics Fig. I. The
which are added to the output signal. problem with the
The standard cure is to apply abias basic form of
voltage to the transistors so that asmall Class-8 output
quiescent current flows in the output stage is distortion
stage. This is only partially effective caused at the
because no two transistors have identi- cross-over point,
cal characteristics. where one
The logical solution is to apply neg-
Tr2
transistor takes
ative feedback around the circuit in over from the
copious quantity to reduce crossover to other.
inaudiblity. Unfortunately, the nature
of this distortion is such that most fier. It consists of three stages. First a amplifier compromises open-loop gain
unwanted harmonics are at high audio transconductance amp turns input volt- by shunting the output impedance of
frequencies. age signals into acurrent output. This the transconductance stage. This is
In order to produce astable amplifier, current is then fed into the voltage probably only of academic interest in
the open-loop gain of the circuit must amplifier stage, or VAS. Normally this the standard amplifier, where no
be rolled off early. Global feedback is is simply acommon-emitter stage. attempt is made to linearise output-
then applied to produce aflat response Herein lies one of the problems of stage distortion except by means of
from the amplifier. However, the the generic circuit. The low input global feedback.
amount of loop gain, the difference impedance presented by the voltage However for the circuit presented
between open-loop and closed-loop
gains, is insufficient to totally eliminate
crossover distortion.
The net result is the standard thd/fre-
quency graph of atypical amp, which
is near the noise floor up to IkHz then
rises rapidly with frequency. A further
complication is that distortion products,
although reduced by feedback, can go
through the amplifier again producing
even higher frequency distortion.
Because of the lowered loop gain at
high frequencies these are not reduced Global feedback
by global feedback as well as one
would like.
Fig. 2. In a) is amodel
of the standard
Driving down distortion
generic Class 8power
So what can be done about this? For I
OW
ROW
reasons of economy, not to mention
V Irl•grl

e> lout = VIn•gn• R Out

amplifier with its
electricity bills, Class A is out for any- three stages -a
thing more than a few watts. transconductance
amplifier, avoltage
Effectively we're stuck with Class B out
=1M amplifier and an
and its attendant non-linearity.
(typical) output stage. Model b)
One logical solution would be to split (b)
is arepresentation of
the amplifier into two, the first stage
being ahigh quality voltage gain stage.
• an unloaded constant
current source and
The output driver stage could be
model c) is the new
designed with high open-loop gain and
R, 68k configuration.
massive local feedback to reduce the 'VNAA,
gain to unity.
This works well in practice but for a
(c)
better solution global feedback can be
applied over both gain blocks to reduce
all non linearities well below audibility.
Such asystem uses nested feedback
VAS Output stage
loops. However what is not realised is
that the generic Class-B amplifier typ-
ified by Doug Selfs articles already Rout
uses nested feedback although it
doesn't, as it stands, do anything to
reduce output-stage distortion. This is fHzC>
Global feedback
the function of the global feedback
loop.
Figure 2a) shows a model of the
standard generic Class B power ampli-

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 487

AUDIO DESIGN

here, and to make proper sense of the just where the amplifier could use it the voltage equivalent of the transcon-
generic model VAS, input impedance most to suppress cross-over artifacts. ductance stage.
needs to be high. To illustrate what can be done to As before, the open-loop Cc.„,„p
improve matters, taking acloser look at defines gain at high frequencies, the
Stability issues the transconductance stage is informa- addition of Rf places the output stage
To ensure stability when the global tive. Figure 2b) shows arepresentation within the local voltage amplifier's
feedback loop is closed, a capacitor, of aconstant current source. As shown, feedback loop. However notice the
Ce„„,p,is connected between collector it is unloaded. The model requires just ratio of Rf to Rom .Provided that the
and base. This turns the voltage ampli- two pieces of information to specify its input impedance of the voltage ampli-
fier into ashunt feedback amplifier or characteristics, namely g„, and R„„,. fier is high enough, the feedback factor
transresistance amplifier. Capacitor .approaches unity.
C, in conjunction with g„, also sets Transconductance stage design As far as the signal is concerned the
both the slew rate and unity gain fre- in aperfect transconductance amplifier, voltage amplifier is acting almost as a
quency. the stage's output impedance, R„,„, unity-gain stage. Overall voltage gain
The voltage gain of this combined would be infinite. From Ohm's law is determined by gm, Rf and is inde-
transconductance/transresistance stage you can deduce that aperfect unloaded pendent of the feedback factor of the
is simply gxC',.., where C. is the transconductance amplifier would pro- circuit.
impedance of C',.,„„p at any given fre- duce an infinite output voltage for any This implies massive local negative
quency. Thus, looking at the thumb input signal. In practice, an Row of feedback which will reduce thd in the
line graph at the right of the figure the 1Ma or more can be achieved with the output to <0.1% —before global feed-
resulting open loop gain at VAS's out- rather simple circuit used in most back is applied.
put descends at 6dB/octave with amplifiers. In addition to this, C is still dom-
increasing frequency. The other factor needed to specify inant at high frequencies so stability is
Horizontal line A represents the gain the response of the transconductance assured. Indeed the prototype of this
after the global feedback has been stage is the transconductance, gm .This amplifier was used to drive a pair of
applied via Rif2. Note that because of is specified as the current output for a Quad 63 electrostatics without stability
the way that the open-loop gain given voltage input and is usually problems. This is widely regarded as
decreases, progressively less feedback expressed in mA/V. Finally we get to the most difficult load encountered in
is applied at high frequencies. This is Fig. 2c). This shows the amplifier with practice, proving the amplifier's uncon-
ditional stability.
Stability can only be ensured how-
4000- ever by the inclusion of LIbetween the
3000 Gain
output and load.
co performance
2. 20 00-
. The top two Déjà vu?
Fa- 10 00-
simulations illustrate Now if you have asneaking suspicion
000-
gain and phase that you've seen this circuit somewhere
-Irmo respectively versus before, you're right. A circuit of this
10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M frequency under kind has already appeared in an article
Frequency [Hz] closed-loop called 'Hot audio power' in the
100 00- conditions. The October 1995 issue.
lower graph shows In that article, the valve output stage
ô,
-0 000 loop gain with was the transresistance amplifier, fed
global feedback from a transconductance, solid-state
u,
'a -100 00- removed, but with phase-splitter. Consequently, the output
E. the shunt feedback valves operated as if they were cathode
-200 00 in place. followers due to the local feedback
10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M applied.
Frequency [Hz] Cherry has suggested that the com-
pensation capacitor C in Fig. 2a) could
100 00 — be connected between Tri's base and
the output. I've tried this but found sta-
bility problems. Instead Iapply my
local feedback via aresistor from the
output stage to the base of Tr i,leaving
6000: C where it is. This produces a stable
circuit. By manipulating gm the global
feedback still has plenty of loop gain to
c 40 00 —
(T) bite on to further linearise the circuit.
In amplifiers built this way, the
20 00 crossover products are already greatly
suppressed by local feedback and then
further reduced by global feedback.
000:
As Imentioned earlier no one who
has heard this amplifier can tell the dif-
20 00 ference between it and aClass-A alter-
1 10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M native. This great improvement has
10M
been wrought by the addition of afew
Frequency [Hz]
components and a little re-jigging of
the basic Class-B design.

ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 AUDIO DESIGN

•I•ci R1 R16
100n Tr2
15OR > 15OR
BC327

MPSA92

R17
BC327 Tr10
1k2

T
R7 AAA 10N20
10k 10n
R22
1R0

R8 3W ceramic
R2 R3 470R

m. 100µ
33R 33R H•

R18
o
< 330R
Input R4 R21
R19 Output
1OR

j
18k
1k2
O C9
R5 Tr13
100n
10k 10P20

Tr5 Tr6
BC327 BC327

C5 Tr11
220p MPSA13 BC337
Tr8 R12 R13
Tr7
BC337 47OR 68k
BC337

R6 All Tr12MP
10k 100R

100n —50VDC

Circuit details levels when shunt feedback has been

The circuit schematic is shown in Fig. applied.
3. It consists of two sub-circuits, a To prevent the high output
transconductance amplifier and the impedance from being compromised a
Mains
VAS/output stage. current mirror Tr7 and Tr8 are used.
input
A fundamental requirement of the High gain n-p-n transistors are used
trans-shunt circuit is that the input volt- here, emitter degeneration being pro-
age signal should be converted into a vided by R10 and R11 .
current to drive the transresistance out-
put stage. Here Tr ' and Tr2 together Driver stage design
with R1 and R7 form a conventional Turning to the driver stage, in order to
constant current source for the input apply alarge amount of shunt feedback the output stage is all well and good Fig. 3. 100W
transistors Tr3 and [Link] are oper- around the output stage, the driver provided that the voltage amplifier has power amplifier
needs a high input impedance. sufficient open-loop gain to make it and its
ated as adifferential pair. Input signals
are coupled into Tr3's base via the dc Preferably this should be infinite. viable. Single pole compensation could conventional
blocking capacitor C2. The input The idea that at single common-emit- be used but to maintain maximum loop power supply.
impedance is set by the value of R4 that ter stage can provide this is afallacy. gain through the audio band double Unusual features
also refers Tr3's base to OV. The typical driver transistor has alow pole compensation is better. Doug Self are the feedback
To produce the high output Hfe ,leading to input impedances in the described this technique in aprevious path via C6 and
impedance required from a transcon- range of afew kilo-ohms. This shunts issue 1. the network
ductance stage, Tr5 and Tr6 are used directly across the transconductance Initially double-pole compensation comprising C7,8
amplifier's output and effectively starts to roll-off at 12db/octave. At hf and R20.
cascode with Tr 3 and Tr4. Emitter
degeneration is used, R10 and R11 ,to reduces the feedback factor of the cir- however it reverts to a6dB/octave roll-
cuit, off to ensure stability. In this design the
linearise the stage. Transistors Tr5 and
Tr6 are biased by the voltage divider R5 To avoid this aDarlington transistor, double pole network consists of C7, C8
and R6. Tr i is used as an emitter follower and R20.
buffer. The voltage amplifier stage Component values have been chosen
The output impedance at Tr5's col-
lector is in the order of amegaohm or proper is Tri 2 aconventional common- so that R20 doesn't load the voltage
so. This is sufficient to reduce the dis- emitter circuit. amplifier collector circuit unduly with-
tortion of the driver/output stage to low Applying masses of feedback around in the audio band.

489
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
AUDIO DESIGN

Choosing an output stage and output stage via R13 . maximum, output aminimum MN/
The choice of output stage is always a Capacitor C6 prevents compromise of per channel sink is recommended.
fraught one for designers. Several pos- the amp's dc conditions. Components
sibilities present themselves. R12 and C5 ensure hf stability and Putting it together
During development of this design I introduce alittle more feedback at the As far as implementation is concerned,
have used pure complementary, quasi high frequency end of the audio spec- the usual rules of good layout should
complementary and V-fet output trum. This shunt feedback network be adhered to. Keep input wiring away
stages. Because of the large amount of reduces the distortion to below 0.1% from the output and use screened lead
negative feedback applied Ihaven't before global feedback is applied. for the input. The easiest way to set the
noticed any sonic differences worth Input impedance at Tr9's base is also quiescent current is as follows.
talking about. But a100W amp is not a reduced by this feedback to less than . Temporarily solder a 1001-2resistor
project for the squeamish! 100iI. Thus the trans-shunt circuit is between Trio and Tri 3's drains and the
Considerations of ruggedness and returned by feeding the current drive supply rails. Don't attach aload to the
device longevity are paramount. In the from Tr5 directly Into Tr ii's base. amplifier yet. Power up and check that
end Ichose V-fets for the output stage. Global feedback is applied through the output is within 50mV of OV. If
Suitable nand p-type devices are read- R9 to Tr4's base. In conjunction with there are any wiring problems at this
ily available. Rg, R9 sets the voltage gain and C4 stage, the 100S1 resistors will be the
Furthermore the staie is immune to reduces the de gain to unity while pass- only casualties!
thermal runaway due to the Vfet's neg- ing ac signals. This component also Switch off, remove the 1001. 1resis-
ative temperature coefficiént and will sets the —3db point of the amplifier at tors and reconnect the drains to the
shrug off ashort circuit load. Don't try approximately 3.5Hz supply. The amplifier is ready to use.
this one with bipolar transistors. Finally the power supply. This is In conclusion I suggest that this
Staying with the output stage stabili- entirely conventional in design. As the amplifier, with its low distortion and
ty compensation for driving reactive current drains of the various stages are low power requirements, wilrfulfil the
loads is given by the network compris- defined with constant-current sources, needs of most audiophiles. Having had
ing C9 and R21 and the output inductor the amplifier can operate from ±20V to mine operating for over six months. I
Li. This latter component comprises 15 ±50V supplies without modification. haven't felt the desire to change it for a
turns of 18 SWG enamelled wire These supplies roughly represent commercial model, regardless of price.
wound around a3W wire-wound resis- power output ratings from 20 to 100W
tor, R22 . continuous into 8S1 loads. Reference
As described earlier local shunt feed- Heat-sink size must of course depend L Self. Douglas. 'Distortion in power amps 7'
back is applied around both the VAS on the amount of power required. For Electronics World, Feb 1994

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 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

Become a
trapezium expert
There's any number of circuits for generating square, sine and
triangular waveforms, but you rarely see anything on producing
trapezium waveforms. Here, Anthony Smith not only explains
how to make trapezium waveforms, but also reveals why they
can be so useful.

ou needn't search too hard if you want to generate Motor and power control
a sine, square, triangular or sawtooth waveform: Trapezium waveforms find applications in active device
textbooks and cookbooks have all sorts of ideas for testing. where they can be used to model real-world digital
generating them. However, whether you consider it to be a signals having finite rise and fall times.
clipped triangle or a slew-limited pulse. the trapezium Since the trapezium can form agood approximation to a
wave seems to get scant mention in much of the literature. sine wave, it is also used extensively in motor controllers
Applications for trapezium waveforms are surprisingly for three-phase systems, induction motors, etc. Here, the
varied. Ifirst encountered this versatile waveshape when relative ease with which the amplitude and frequency of
working on Highway-Addressable Remote Transducer, or the trapezium can be controlled makes it an attractive alter-
HART. communications systems. An outline of HART is native to sine wave control.
presented in aseparate panel. As well as being used to provide drive for motors, the

+V s (+5V)

Fig. 1. Switched
current mirrors and
asimple diode
clamp define the
trapezium on C.

(
R1, R2, CL,
Tr1-Tr4: see text)

492 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

trapezium wave may also be used to control a motor's

Fig. 2. Switched
velocity, a typical example being the printfhead drive current mirror -
motor of adot matrix-printer.
undamped
Known as 'trajectory profile generation' and 'velocity
response. The
contouring', such methods use the trapezium shape as a
middle and
control signal. The rising and falling edges determine the
bottom traces
acceleration and deceleration of the motor.
compare Voia
A separate panel entitled 'Trapezium waveform param- using general
eters' shows how the RMS value of atrapezium voltage
purpose
may be varied from aminimum of Vpl. V3 to amaximum of
transistors and
Vp simply by altering the slope of the rising and falling fast-switching
edges. Consequently, the trapezium lends itself to RMS
transistors
regulation techniques, whereby the power to aload may be respectively, both
controlled either by adjusting the 'crest' width, t, while
at 2V/div. The
keeping the rise and fall times constant, or by adjusting
top trace shows
only the slope of the edges. For systems where the load
VIN displayed at
parameters are known and constant, the power may be con- 5V/div. and the
trolled by sampling the peak load voltage and using pulse-
time-base was set
width modulation to adjust the relative width of the trapez-
to 20Ons/div.
ium crest.

Rings a bell... Fig. 3. Switched

The trapezium waveshape also finds applications in current mirror,
telecommunications systems such as dual-tone multi-fre- clamped response
quency, or DTMF, telephone dialling circuits. Here it is using general-
used to approximate asinusoid. purpose
Dual-tone multi-frequency dialling signals make use of transistors. The
two simultaneous sinusoidal tones of different frequencies middle trace is
Votyr with CL at
to represent each key on atelephone keypad. To ensure
compatibility with DTMF receivers, the tones must have 10pF and the
accurately defined frequencies. This may be achieved by bottom trace is
Vouj with aCL of
generating low-pass filtered trapeziurh signals that are fre-
quency locked to acrystal reference. 230pF. Both are
The signal that rings the telephone bell may also be at 1V/div. The
trapezium shaped, or may be apseudo-sinusoid formed by top trace is VIN at
low-pass filtering a trapezium-shaped waveform. The 5V/div. The time-
Harrisantersil HC55171 ringing Subscriber-Line Interface bus transceiver. Each of the DS3662's quad drivers gen- base setting was
Circuit, or SLIC, for example, can produce sinusoidal or erates aprecise trapezium waveform having rise and fall 20Ons/div.
trapezium-shaped ringing signals. times of 15ns.
Bellcore ringing specifications set limits on the ringing This slew-rate limiting reduces noise coupling to adja-
signal characteristics, particularly On crest factor, which is cent bus lines: when used with the low-pass filtering inher-
the ratio of peak voltage to RMS voltage, and the mini- ent in the DS3662's receivers, the performance in terms of
mum RMS ringing voltage. Bellcore specifies acrest fac- data rate versus line length can be an order of magnitude
tor range of 1.2 to 1.6. better than that achieved with other transceivers that do not
It can be deduced from the separate panel that the trapez- have slew rate limiting 2.
ium's crest factor ranges from unity to Ni3, i.e. 1.732. So by Recently, new devices have appeared that offer pin-
adjusting the trapezium's shape to provide acrest factor selectable slew-rate control. Linear Technology's
less than that of asinusoid, which is 1.414, the RMS volt- LTC1535 isolated RS485 transceiver, for example, has a
age available to the handset can be maximised. This results 'slow slew-rate select' pin. Via this pin, typical driver tran-
in more ringing power and an increase in the allowable sition times can be increased from 2Ons to around 50Ons to
loop length between the handset and the SLIC.
Trapezium therapy
Slew-rate control
In high-speed datacomms applications, such as Low- The trapezium wave can benefit not only electrical systems, but
Voltage Differential Signalling, or LVDS, where data rates neurological ones, too. Electrical stimulation has been used in nerve
up to 400Mbits/s are feasible, crosstalk and EMI are of therapy where trapezium-shaped pulses are applied to a damaged
particular concern. nerve by way of electrodes attached to the patient's skin [Link] a
Devices such as Texas Instruments' SN65LVDS31 frequency range of 60 to 250Hz and an RMS voltage of around
LVDS drivers' allow the user to minimise these effects by 20V, the pulses can be used to stimulate damaged nerve tissue back
connecting acapacitor across the differential output. This to its normal, healthy function. Although it is not completely under-
reduces the slew rate of the output pulses, resulting in a stood why pulses of atrapezium shape are so effective in this form of
trapezium signal shape, thereby minimising the harmonic treatment, the technique can return a damaged nerve to near normal
content of the transmitted signal. condition and is particularly successful in cases where nerve damage
Slew-rate limiting techniques are not new. They have has resulted in hearing loss.
been used to good effect in other devices such as National
Semiconductor's DS3662 high-speed trapezium-waveform

49 3
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

+V s (+5V)
• • +5V
RE, RE3
100nI 10u Notes: 5R1 5R1
ICid -1f and IC2c -21 not used. (0.1%) (0.1%) R5
R2. R3, CL,VUIGH ,VLE,„„ -see text. 4k7
Tri Tr3
ICla
74AC14 BC556B BC556B

^ 14
'Gib
VN
(0 to 5V) IN1

7
R2

:c,

• IC2a
Cl D1 74AC14
B Y88C
100p1" 14
5V6

Tr6
100n: BC556B

10p.

Tr4
/BC546B
R1 r
4k7
RE4
5R1
(0.1%)

Fig. 4. Bipolar minimise EMI and line reflections.

trapezium- There is, of course, a price to be paid in terms of
waveform reduced bit rate and an increase in supply current during R 2

generator with the slow slew-rate edges. Clearly, the charge and discharge currents, / C3 and /c4,
improved and hence the rising and falling edges of the trapezium
clamping circuit. Practical circuits can be controlled by adjusting R1 and R2.
What, then, is the best way to produce a trapezium In practice, any mismatch between the mirror transis-
waveform? tors can be mitigated to some extent by emitter resistors
For general test purposes I needed to generate a RE1 _4.These also impart adegree of temperature stabil-
trapezium waveform whose positive and negative ity and increase the output resistance of the mirror's.
peaks could be varied over arange of at least ±5V. I
needed abroad frequency range — from afew hertz up Prototype performance
to at least several hundred kilohertz — and the positive 1decided to test the circuit using both general purpose
and negative slopes had to be independently transistors (p-n-p BC177B; n-p-n BC108B) and fast,
adjustable, with an upper limit of at least ±10V/is. switching transistors (p-n-p ZTX510; n-p-n ZTX314).
The need for fast slewing prompted me to discount Static performance was reasonable considering that the
d-to-a converters and digitally-controlled resistor net- devices were not matched in any way: the worst-case
works: Iwanted asolution that would provide inher- current matching error for the general purpose devices
ently smooth, linear ramping between peaks — a was around 130%, whereas for the Zetex ZTX parts,
desire that led, inevitably, to the charge and discharge the error was amore respectable 48%. However, it was
of acapacitor. the dynamic performance that sorted the men from the
A simple way of achieving this is shown in Fig. 1. boys.
Here, switched current mirrors formed by Tri with Figure 2 shows circuit response with the output
Tr 3 and Tr 2 with Tr4 provide charge and discharge unclamped, i.e. Tr 3 and Tr4 allowed to saturate.
currents for load capacitor CL. Resistors R1 and R2 were set at lkil, and CL at 10pF,
Simple diode clamping, comprising D I,D2,VLow representing the probe capacitance.
and VNIGN ,buffered by emitter followers Tr5 and Tr6, The middle trace illustrates the saturation effects of
defines the upper and lower peaks of the trapezium. A the general purpose devices: the p-n-p transistor, Tr3,
rectangular input signal, VIN, that swings from OV to takes around 100ns to come out of saturation, whereas
+Vs, determines the current injected into each mirror. the n-p-n part, Tr4,takes around 400ns. The bottom
For example, if you assume the n-p-n mirror is trace shows the circuit response with the general pur-
ideal, i.e. Tr 2 is perfectly matched to Tr4,then the pose transistors replaced by the Zetex parts: response
discharge current, /c- 4,is given by, from saturation is now almost instantaneous.

494 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

Fig. 5. Bipolar
Since Tr i4 form acomplementary current mirror, out-
't11
200'
r
A2 2,6 trapezium
put transition time will depend on the turn-on time delay of
agiven output transistor combined with the turn-off delay
of the complementary device. In general, the turn-off delay
J clamped at +2V
and —3V with C1
at 110pF. The
of abipolar transistor tends to be much greater than the
upper trace is
turn-on delay. Turn-off delay is dominated by the 'storage

\
VIN at 5V/div.
time', during which the device is saturated and an excess of
and at the
charge builds up in the base region 5.
bottom, VouT at
It follows that switching performance can be optimised by
1V/div. The time-
selecting transistors specifically designed to minimise the
base setting was
storage delay: refer again to the bottom trace of Fig. 2,
20Ons/div.
where it takes around 7Ons after VIN rises before Vow- starts
to fall (the p-n-p ZTX510 has amaximum turn-off time of
9Ons), and roughly lOns after VIN falls before Vow- starts to
rise (the n-p-n ZTX314 has amaximum turn-off time of
18ns).
Alternatively, it should be possible to minimise the turn- 2013ns
off delay using general purpose devices by keeping the
transistors out of saturation. The middle trace of Fig. 3
again shows the output response using only the general pur- changes in VIN — turn-off delay is almost completely absent.
pose transistors; this time though, DIand D2 are connected The bottom trace of Fig. 3shows the output response with
to CL,and VLow and VHIGH have been set to clamp Vour at CL increased to around 230pF. The resulting trapezium
+1V and +4V. slews cleanly between the clamp levels at arate of about
Notice how the output signal responds immediately to ±12V/ps.

Trapezium waveform all equal, the RMS value is very close to

parameters that of asine wave with peak amplitude sin — xs
in(OS) +
•(K3)
This diagram shows an idealised case V.
where arectangular input signal results —
I xsin(x)x sin(3ax)+

in atrapezium output waveform whose Fourier series F(1‘=

' 1£- '322
ir2
time and amplitude characteristics can If you consider an amplitude-symmetrical xsin( r)x sin(5ax)+
5 3
be independently adjusted. trapezium that is also time-symmetrical,
In this example, the positive peak, Vp i.e., when tr=tf, the waveform can be 2 xsin(L
T)x sin(7att)+ ...
7 3 which
,is greater than the negative peak, VN , represented as afunction with the
and the positive slope is steeper than following Fourier series, can be simplified to,
the negative slope, such that the rise sin(K) xsin(ax)+ 11.053 xsin(an)+
time, t„ is shorter than the fall time, t .
f
— xsin(3K).sin(3ox)+ F(t)= V, 0xsin(3ca)-[Link](5ax)+
Clearly, the 'crest' time, tc,can be
adjusted by varying the width of the 0.021 xsin(7ax)+...
F(t)=i
El( —xsin(5K)x sin(5aTi)+
input pulse.
For the case of an amplitude- Clearly, the sin(3cut) term drops out —as
— xsin(7K)x sin(los) + do all other harmonics divisible by 3-
symmetrical waveform, i.e., when 72
IVp1= IVN Isuch that (tr-ftei-ti)=T/2, i.e., and ignoring higher harmonics which are
equal to half the period, the RMS value where the higher terms have been small in amplitude relative to the
of the trapezium is given by, omitted, and where K=2EtiT and fundamental, the expression becomes
co=2n/T. F(t)=1.053Vesin(wt), which is very
t+t
V„, = 4' 3T f If you again consider the case where nearly the same as asine wave of
ty=t1=T/6, the series reduces to, amplitude Vp and frequency t= 1/T.
It you let t
r=tf and make t
c=0, we find

that,
Generating atrapezium-
V shaped wave, with fully
VRAIS =
adjustable parameters, in
Rectangular
response to arectangular
which should be familiar as the RMS input signal
input signal.
voltage of atriangle wave having peak
amplitude Vp. On the other hand, if you
make t r=t 1
=0, such that tc=T/2, the RMS
value reduces to VRAis= Vp, representing
the case of an ideal, symmetrical square
wave.
An interesting case arises when Trapezoidal Negative
t,=tf=t,=T/6, resulting in, output signal slope

Vsus =Vpe 8

which is very nearly equal to Ve12.

This shows that when the rise time, fall
time and crest time of the trapezium are

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

Bipolar swing around 5V, the swing must be limited to less than 5.6V
A bipolar version of the circuit is shown in Fig. 4where C1, pk-pk. Nevertheless, provided this condition is met, VHIGH
D Iand RI form acrude level shifter which transfers /Ci a's and VLOW can be adjusted in conjunction with R2 and R3 to
positive output pulses to /C2„ .b .Thus. R3 is driven by asignal create trapezium, triangular and sawtooth waveforms that lie
swinging from —Vs to OV. which is in phase with the signal anywhere between the —5V and +5V rails.
swinging from OV to +Vs that drives R2.
Complementary emitter followers Tr5_ 8 form an improved High voltage swings
clamp circuit: assuming the Vs of the n-p-ns are roughly A variation on the above theme is shown in Fig. 6, which
equal to those of the p-n-ps, the upper and lower peaks of the is capable of generating high-voltage waveforms. The
trapezium will equal VHIGH and Vww, respectively. trapezium slopes are again controlled by R2 and R3. These
Figure 5shows the high-frequency response, again using components determine the currents injected into the com-
only general purpose transistors, and with CI,at 110pF. plementary mirrors via Tr 5 and Tr6.
Resistors R2 and R3 were adjusted to set 1 c3 at 2.75mA and Voltages VHIGH and VLOW are no longer used to clamp
Ic4 at 0.92mA, resulting in slopes of +25V/ps and —8.4V/ps. the waveform. Instead, they establish the upper and lower
The clamp circuit performed well: the values of VHIGH and limits of the trapezium by varying the supply rails to the
VLOW required to establish aswing from —3V to +2V differed mirrors. However, for good high frequency response, it is
by less than 50mV from the actual levels observed. However, still necessary to keep Tr3 and Tr4 out of saturation. The
the trapezium's peak-to-peak swing is limited by the base- Baker clamps formed by D2 .3and D4.5 achieve this.
emitter breakdown voltages of Tr5.6 and must not exceed Baker clamps have been used extensively in switched-
VaiReB0-1-VBE, where V(BR)EB0 is the minimum breakdown mode power supplies [Link] such designs, the bipolar tran-
voltage of either Tr5 or Tr6. sistor that drives the magnetic components must be kept
For the devices shown, having a minimum V(BR)E80 of out of saturation in order to ensure fast switching and thus

Fig. 6. Using Baker clamps and atransistor RE1 RE3

array to generate high-voltage trapeziums. 5R1 5R1
(0.1%) (0.1%)
+V s (+5V)
10 13
14
100n 10p . Tri Tr3
Notes:
Tri -Tr5 = CA3096. 12 15 •
IC1d -1f and IC2c -2f not used.
R2, R3, CL,VHIGH ,VLOW -see text. C3
IC1a
02 D3 VHIGH
74AC14
1N4148 1N4148
IC1b
14 •
VIN 2 3 4
• • •
(0 to 5V)
7

R2
VOUT
5
Tr6
BC556B
OV

OV
•
D1
C1
BZY88C
100p
5V6
D5
1N4148

VLOW
100n

10p . I
C2 C4
7
3 6
Tr2 CA3096
Tr4
R1 pin 16
4k7 2 4 (Substrate)
o
RE2 RE4
-V s (-5V) 5R1 5R1
(0.1%) T (0.1%)

496
ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000
 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

maintain high efficiency. Fig. 7. Generating

In Fig. 6, D2 and D3 ensure that Tr3's collector-emitter a-10V/+15V
voltage cannot become less than its VBE drop. When Tr5 is trapezium with
driven 'on' and sinks current through D2,the collector Baker clamps
voltage of Tr3 rises at arate determined by /
c3 and CL until active. AI the top
it is high enough to forward bias [Link] this point, D3's is VIN at
anode potential will equal that of D2 - assuming similar 5V/[Link] at the
drops across each diode - effectively clamping the col- bottom is the
lector of Tr3 to the same potential as its base. output waveform
Consequently, the trapezium peaks at alevel just below at 5V/div. In this
% Gib determined by Tr3's VBE drop and the small drop case, the time-
across RE3 . base was
Diodes D4 and D5 provide asimilar function with Tr4. 50Ons/div.

Transistor array
Idecided to test the circuit using aHarris/Intersil CA3096
transistor array for Tr i.
[Link] IC provides adegree of match-
ing between the transistors in its n-p-n and p-n-p pairs -but
Fig. 8. Output
beware that only the 'A' version offers guaranteed matching.
response for same
Static performance was impressive. With VHIG WVLow at
conditions as Fig.
±5V, and / c/ and /c2 set to 2.0mA, currents /
c3 and /c4 dif-
7, but with Baker
fered from this value by no more than 4%, although this error
clamps removed.
increased to 15% with VH/Gie Low at ±15V.
The upper trace
Figure 7illustrates dynamic performance. Here, R2 and R3
is VIN at 5V/div.
were selected to yield slopes of +25V/ps and -50V/ps across
and at the
aload capacitance of around 66pF. Levels %/HIGH and VLow
bottom, the
were adjusted to swing the trapezium from -10V to +15V.
output waveform
For exactly the same conditions, Fig. 8details the output
at 5V/div. Time-
response with the Baker clamps disabled, i.e. with D3 and D5
base setting,
removed. You can see that the output signal now takes about
50Ons/div.
150-20Ons to respond to transitions of VIN ,the sluggish
response being due to saturation of Tr 3 and Tr4.
The peak-to-peak swing of the trapezium must be limited
to avalue less than the collector-emitter breakdown voltage,
V(BiocEo ,of Tr3 and [Link] the minimum V(BR)CEO for
the CA3096 devices is 35V, asafe limit would be around
30V pk-pk. However, if high-voltage transistors were
employed, such as MPSA44s for the n-p-ns, and MPSA92s Digital control of an improved mirror
for the p-n-ps, and provided D3,D5 and CI.,were also suitably The output resistance of the simple current mirror considered
rated, it should be possible to generate waveforms with so far can be approximated by R0 =VA//c, where VA is the
amplitudes exceeding 100V pk-pk. output transistor's Early voltage, and /c is output current 7.
8.

+V s (+15V)
+15V

RE,
Input code Load current. IL
25R
lOtt Full scale 11111111 44255/256).1 a,, (0.1%)

Half scale 10000000 +0/256)

Zero scale 00000000 -(255/256).f:
,,, Tri
BC556B
8-bit digital code (0 to 5V logic levels)
Fig. 9. Combining ad-
C2
to-a converter and D1
.."100n
1N4148
Wilson current mirror MSB 0 o o o O o 0 LSB

provides digital control 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 7

of the trapezium's B, B, B. B, 13, e. B.
4 oui
slopes. 13
V.
OU
I

R1
(see text) I
REF la IC 1
REF(*) DAC08
R2
(see text)
15
1
- I
OU, Tr5
COMP 2 BC5568 \

16
-4 C, CL
100n:
1N4148 (see text) R3
10n Cl
0-1 487
1N4148 100n
OV OV

15V

-Vs (-15V)

497
June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 CONTROL ELECTRONICS

/ {(2 xINPUTCODE)- 255 1

What is HART? „.
= „ 256
In the HART system, 'smart' devices, such as temperature transmitters
and actuators, use the HART protocol to communicate with acentral Therefore, I L is abipolar current ranging from - O.99ólREFtO
controller. They communicate by superimposing digital signals on a +0.996/REF as shown by the table in Fig. 9. By switching the
conventional 4-20mA current loop using phase-continuous frequency- input code between suitable levels, the voltage on CL can be
shift keying at 1200Hz/2200Hz. made to ramp up and down at precise rates, thereby allowing
The protocol calls for abalanced AC signal with zero DC content that digital control of the trapezium slopes.
will not disturb the 4-20mA loop signal. A sinusoid would be the Diode D Iwith Tri. 3 form amodified Wilson current mir-
preferred waveshape, but generating aphase-continuous FSK sine wave ror. The presence of Tr3 increases the output resistance 8 of
is not so simple. Slew-limiting the edges of the square wave digital the simple, two-transistor mirror by afactor of W2, where 13
signal, however, can produce atrapezoid, relatively easily. is the common-emitter current gain of the transistors used.
With suitable amplitude scaling, the resulting 'pseudo-sinusoid' is then Diode D I,which could be another p-n 7ptransistor, balances
coupled to the 4-20mA loop allowing amass of information -such as the VBE of Tr3,forcing the collector potentials of Tri and Tr2
tag numbers, range and span data, and diagnostics -to be to be equal. This improves the matching of I C3 to low- .
communicated between Smart devices.
Linear response
With a total load capacitance of around 130pF - which
Rarely quoted on transistor data sheets, VA might range includes CL,probe capacitance, and the capacitance of Tr3,
from 50 to 100V, depending on the device used. Clearly, for D2,D3 and pin 2of / CI-and with I BEE set to 2mA, Itested
lc greater than 2mA, Ro will be less than 501d1 -hardly an the circuit's response. Idid this by switching the input value
optimum value for acurrent source! from 000000002 to 101010002 at about 160kHz. Levels
This relatively low output resistance causes slight changes VLow and % GI,were adjusted to clamp the trapezium's
in the output current as the voltage on CL varies, an effect peaks at -7V and +10V, as in Fig. 10.
that manifests itself as acurvature in the trapezium's slopes. Ifound that the measured output current levels - and,
This non-linearity can just be discerned from Figs 7 & 8. hence, the trapezium slopes - differed slightly from calcu-
Here, the slope of the rising edge, for example, varies by as lated values, due, simply, to matching errors in the mirror.
much as 7% from its nominal, mid-slope value of +25V/,us. However, the rising and falling edges were perfectly linear,
Output resistance can be greatly increased by using a with no discernible 'curvature'.
Wilson current mirror as in Fig. 9. The mirror's output cur- Output swing must be constrained to prevent Tr3 from sat-
rent, I, is controlled by the d-to-a converter. This circuit is urating. It must be at least two VBEsbelow +Vs. The negative
amodified version of acircuit9 intended to provide precise, swing is limited by /C 1's negative voltage compliance: this
digital control of the bipolar current fed to an external load. is around -10V with 1 BEE at 2mA and -Vs at -15V.
The high-speed, eight-bit d-to-a converter, / CI,generates
complementary output currents louT and / our .These actu- Pulse-slope modulation
ally flow into the device, the sum of which equals the full- Usually, R2,which is connected to the inverting input of the
scale current, I FS ,for all values of digital input code. The
DACO8's internal reference amplifier, is made equal to /2 1
load current, I L,flowing into CL is given by, and tied to OV. Alternatively, it may be connected to avari-
able reference voltage to trim lour and / ow-
= -l our .
However, by connecting R2 to an alternating signal, the
Assuming the Wilson current mirror formed by Tr i_ 3 to be load current I L -and, hence, the trapezium's slopes -can be
ideal, then / 0 =/our, such that.
modulated. For example, with R2 fed by alow frequency sine
wave, the trapezium's rising and falling edges became ablur
= 'OUT -Icitif
as the dV/dt varied in proportion to the amplitude of the mod-
Since, ulating sine wave. This fascinating effect suggests that the
circuit could be used for 'pulse-slope modulation'. I'll leave
'OUT 4- 1011T = IFS
it to you to think of an application for this!
you will find that / L=2/our-/Fs .

The magnitude of /our depends on the input code and I BEE, References

where ' BEE is the reference current given nominally by

I. "Slew Rate Control of LVDS Circuits", Texas Instruments
VREF/Rt• In particular, loo2=(INPUTCODE1256) X--1REF. Application Report No. SLLA034A.
Since /Fs=(2.5.5/256)x/REF,you will find that, 2. "DS3662 -The Bus Optimizer" National Semiconductor
Fig. 10. Linear Application Note AN -259.
response of the d-to- 3. "Method of nerve therapy using trapezoidal pulses", US
aconverter Patent No. 3881495, 6May 1975.
controlled 4. "Analysis & Design of Analog Integrated Circuits" (p241-
trapezium p244) by P. R. Gray & R. G. Meyer (John Wiley & Sons,
generator. The top 1984)
trace is the input 5. "Microelectronic Circuits" (p399-p402) by A. S. Sedra &
signal applied to B K. C. Smith (Holt Saunders, 1982).
B3 and B5 displayed
6. "Switching Power Supply Design" (p325-p339) by A. I.
at 5V/div. All other Pressman (McGraw-Hill, 1991).
bits are low. At the 7. "Early Definition" (p474-p477) by Bryan Hart, Electronics
bottom you can see World June 1999.
the output signal 8. "Early Applied" (p591-p594) by Bryan Hart, Electronics
ramping from -7V World July 1999.
to +10V, also at a 9. "Current Mirror Enhances DAC"; Alfred P. Neves, EDN 16
setting of 5V/div. February 1989.
The time-base used 10. "Applying the DAC08", Philips Semiconductors
was 1 ps/div. Application Note AN I01 (1988).

498
ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000
 CONTROL & INSTRUMENTATION

Calibrator for 4-20mA

After reeling at the price of a calibrator for 4 to 20mA loop
interfaces, Darren Heywood decided to look into designing his own.
He succeeded in making one that performs better than its commercial
counterpart -and at a fraction of the cost.

T
he most important parameter of around £300 have atypical stability of PWM chip generates a26V supply.
any instrument is its rate of 4pAIT at 4mA, best case. This allows the unit to handle external
output change with ambient My circuit has astaggering drift load resistances up to IId/
temperature, hence if long term gradient of only 100nAPC at 4mA and Transistors Tr' and Tr, are essentially
stability has been accomplished then 600nAPC at 20mA. This means it is class C amplifiers that deliver apower
all that remains is to calibrate to a some 40 times more stable then pulse every half cycle. The supply can
known source. commercially available units. sustain 26V while sourcing some
Idescribe here a4-20mA calibrator 50mA. The step up is accomplished
of the type widely used in process Circuit overview without the need of acustom wound
industries. Equivalent commercial 4- My unit runs from eight I.5V standard expensive transformer; instead two
20mA calibrators with aprice tag of AA batteries, i.e., I2V, the SG3524 cheap easily available inductors are
used.
12V The SG3524 runs at about 200kHz.

I.
Components Tr 'and Tr2 run very cool
o-->Battery 12V under normal conditions, which means
+12V step up conversion is very efficient —a

R2
Powe +1 V
47R
on
LED L1 D5
U.C 1 1mH 1N916
+12V
:470n
O 13 5
15 1k 390R
Tr 2
TIP41C
R10
R7 C5
2k R11
1k 22p
3R3 35V+
IH .
1) 4 8
• •
+12V

C2 L2 D7
10(in 1mH 1N916
R13 )+26V
390R
Tri
TIP41C
R14
2k R12 1R 17
3R3 27k
R15
Aciust 51k
for 26V MA&
1'4
3k
>Gnd

>—12V
(not used)
Fig. 1. Supply generation —26V from a 12V battery.
It uses standard, and hence cheap, inductors and
delivers up to 50mA.

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 499

 CONTROL & INSTRUMENTATION

+26V
o
125mA
4 Tx e SIM e

+ — + —
L3
560u H

Fig. 2. Control circuitry is based on an ICL7650 >+ meter

chopper-stabilised op-amp with an open-loop gain of
D4 1N916
around 30 000 000.
1N916
D5 1N916

1N916
D6 1N916

1N9 R4,
3
+12V >— meter
P6 Pot CIL. 470R

C11 C10
Ps 20mA Moon 100n
R„
11
100k
Tr,
P, 16mA
2N2905A
R„
R40 R42
1k
P3 12mA 100R 100k

C12
2 8mA 1100n Tr 4
2N3904
R45
P1 4mA
100k
100n
C7 R47
100n 200R

9
R49 47 P VR 3
+12V
100k 100R span
R 26
560k
:R 20 R19
1k2 2k R21 +1 V

18k Lo batt. 'Sim', in which is simulates.

R24
820R In transmit mode, the unit sends 4
to 20mA into an external load.
LED Simulate mode is used to simulate
two-wire systems. Iam not sure
R18 R23 R25 Re why process engineers call this
3k3 1M8 1M8
—'VVVV
1 4117 10k mode 'simulate' as Ifeel it is a
rather misleading term. In this
mode, my calibrator sinks a4-20mA
signal from the instrument under
Fig. 3. Low pre-requisite for battery powered million, i.e. 150dB. This device retails test's own 24V supply and the
battery monitor instruments. for as little as £3. calibrator behaves or 'simulates' a
lights the LED The main control circuitry comprises Notice the floating offset correction two-wire 4-20mA field instrument.
when voltage falls an LM329C which is a20 pprar capacitors C7 and C8. The only Current being drawn through the
to 10V. reference of 6.9V. Its output is stepped drawback /C3 has is that its output 24V supply is measured.
down via R33 through R39. You can impedance is quite high hence loading In the field, direct current mea-
select 4to 20mA in steps of 20% the output can gobble up much needed surement is possible by connecting a
increments or decrements. gain. To overcome this slight problem, DMM across diodes D4 through D6
Position 6allows you infinite Tr4 and Tr5 make up alocalised without disturbing or breaking the
resolution between 4and 20mA with current-feedback pair, providing a current loop.
the aid of the ten-turn potentiometer. high input impedance.
The switched positions are fed into During development, Iincluded a Calibrating
the excellent ICL7650 chopper- buffer between /C2 and /[Link] totally When calibrating the unit, connect a
stabilised amplifier. This device has an spoilt the stability of the circuit and so 0.1% 15ppm 0.33W 2500 resistor
open-loop gain of approximately thirty Iremoved it. Resistors R33 to R39 across the Tx terminals. With a
inclusive should be 15ppm 0.1% 61/2-digit bench multimeter

4-20mA types, but excellent stability is still switched to the volts range, measure
Field 24V possible with 5Oppm 1% alternatives. the voltage across the 2500 resistor.
2-wire system Chart recorder
instrument 11› OV The unit is equipped with alow- Currents of 4 to 20mA will corre-
battery indicator, /[Link] the spond to a 1to 5V drop across the
4.5mA is drawn The chart recorder responds
from the chart battery fall below about 10V, LED 2 250e resistor. Switch to position 1
by monitoring the current
recorder to power 'pull on its 24V supp y.
flashes on and off indicating that and adjust the zero potentiometer
the field instrument 4mA =zero, accuracy is no longer be guaranteed. for 1V. Then switch to position 5
20mA =full span. and adjust the span potentiometer
The 4-20mA loop. Two-wire 4-20mA system use less cable In use for 5V.
than their four-wire counterparts and they give fewer ground- The unit has two modes of operation, Repeat this procedure until
loop problems -but they pose more problems for the designer. 'Tx', in which it transmits and satisfactory results are obtained. •

500 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

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504 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

Letters to the editor
Letters to "Electronics World" Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 SAS

e-mail [Link]@[Link] using subject heading 'Letters'.

Audio power analysis in asingle pass. Anyone who has asound

Can anyone throw
Ifound Doug Self's article on audio power card or CD-ROM on his or her PCs would
analysis in the December 1999 issue most be able to use this technique. any light on this?
interesting. It is always good to see Given that Doug has obtained quite With reference to Joe Pengelly's letter
quantitative data replace assumptions and satisfactory results using his analogue in the May issue, Iwould have thought
conjecture. circuit, there is probably little incentive to that one could add amodern infra-red
While the analogue circuit described implement this procedure, but it may be of or visible light emitter and detector —
achieved the desired aim, it does have the some interest to other readers. i.e. LED and phototransistor —to any
stated disadvantage that multiple passes are Darren Conway pickup headshell and contrive astylus-
required to obtain the required density Auckland carrier as well out of aredundant
functions. If the music is available in New Zealand cartridge. Unlike many vinyl discs, I
digital form —particularly if it is adigital suspect that cylinders are not
data stream from aCD —there is asimple Doug replies: transparent to infra-red.
technique for obtaining the density function Iwould like to thank Mr Conway for his John Woodgate
in one pass with I4-bit resolution for CDs. kind words. The routine he gives is ver} Via e-mail
The procedure is as follows: close to that actually used in the DSP
Initiate ablock of memory sized 2power version Idescribed in the original article. It
14 to all zeros. Smaller memory may be is of course very much faster, but since it greatly by raising the value of the feedback
allocated by truncating the data. requires adigital-signal processor with a .resistor like this, without incurring a
For each data word, use the data value as support platform, it is very much a significant noise penalty.
amemory address offset and increment the 'maximum-hardware' solution, as opposed With op-amps now available with bias
word at that address. to the 'minimum hardware, maximum currents of around apicoamp or less and
The pseudo code would be as follows: tedium' comparator approach. very low current noise, the gain is thus
limited only by practical values of feedback
Variables: resistor, and the acceptable frequency
MemSize = size of memory
Easily-bared ends response.
allocated If, like me, you have spent half your life However, using atee attenuator in the
StartMem = address of first word winding coils, toroids and so forth, feedback network to simulate ahigh-value
in memory block scraping the enamel off 'magnet wire' is feedback resistor raises the noise gain of
Offset = 14 bit value tedious chore. However, with ahand-held the circuit.
; Initiate Memory I2V PCB drill fitted with a6-by-6mm The easiest way to describe this is to
For x = 0 to MemSize grinding wheel, you can cut through even consider the op-amp's input offset voltage
ptr(StartMem+x) = 0 ;clear the the toughest of varnish coatings and V„. Negative feedback drives the op-amp's
memory block produce aperfect 'tail' for subsequent output to provide avoltage across the
Loop soldering. attenuator's shunt leg of V„. In Cyril's Fig.
Offset = CD data value (14bit) RS sells a12V drill (547-616) with 2, the op-amp output will thus sit at 100
;read in a data value from collets up to 3mm diameter, and WI60 times V„.
the music CD grinding wheels (575-273/pack often). The Now V„ is simply an unwanted input: it
Increment(StartMem+Offset); latter are available individually from is just the dc component of the input
Increment the word at Farnell (700-9422). 'noise'. Exactly the same argument applies
address (StartMem+Offset) CID Catto to the ac noise at the op-amp's input: it too
Repeat Loop Cambridge will be amplified by 40dB, rendering the
extra gain to the signal of no use.
When arun is complete each address will An alternative way of looking at it is to
hold avalue equal to the number of times a Photodiode sensing consider the star-delta transformation
particular signal amplitude occurred. The would not recommend readers use atee applied to the tee network. It gives the
stored values directly give the probability attenuator in place of ahigh-value feedback wanted 1000Mil feedback resistor, plus a
density function. The value at each address resistor in aphotodiode circuit such as Fig. 20MQ shunt resistor at the op-amp's output
equates to the probability that asignal is in 2of the article 'Photodiode sensing', —of no consequence. It also gives asimilar
the range (x,x+dx) where dx= Ibit. Electronics World, March 2000, page 212. resistance shunting the op-amp's input —
Simple integration of the stored values The purpose of using ahigh-value definitely not wanted!
gives the cumulative density function. feedback resistor — 10, 100 or even You can find the subject simply but well
Further code would be needed to check for 1000Mil —is to produce ausable size treated in the data sheet for the LT1115
overflow and to scale the stored values so output from avery small photodiode op-amp. from Linear Technology.
that they all add up to equal one but this output, i.e. with the diode in very dim light. Ian Hickman
simple software procedure will provide the Provided the op-amp has very low current Waterlooville
data required to produce density functions noise, the circuit gain can be increased Hants

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 505

LETTERS

In Defence of privatisation Even when the most brilliant of But all this is common knowledge, which
Spithre. Hurricane. Lancaster, Mosquito. innovations come from right inside its own makes Richard Wilson's editorial in the
The last time it really mattered, it was organisation, the natural response of the March issue so very odd. Anybody with any
civilian innovation that delivered the goods. military is to reject it. Frank Whittle knew real concern for the quality of UK military
Tanks, torpedoes, submarines, rockets, all about that. equipment should be clamouring for
parachutes, planes, nuclear explosives, you As for 'security', virtually the whole of DERA's privatisation.
name it; civilian innovation again, and all MoD's inventory is designed, built and And what has DERA done that so impresses
rejected by the establishment as 'of no maintained by private industry —including Richard? What makes DERA, "so important
military use'. the bits so secret they don't even exist. to the UK"? Well, Richard first tells us about

This month's hot topic heating boiler is an example. Casing Thermoucouple-

We received asignificant It is possible to test avalve Plunger
locked gas valve.
number of replies relating to using aD cell and acurrent The coil doesn't
domestic thermocouples. limiting resistor. Iwon't go into move the valve
Apologies; there wasn't space to details as we have come across To thermocouple plunger; it simply
include all of them, but many systems that have been left (via pyro) holds it in place
thanks everyone that wrote in. being 'Tested' for some Armature
when it is open.
Please note that only aCprgi- considerable length of time —
approved fitter is allowed to most definitely not agood idea! which can cut off the gas seconds.
tamper with gas appliances. The Gary Williams supply —the default condition. If you push the plunger in a
'bodge' mentioned below is Consultant Gas Engineers Ltd When the plunger is few times while warming it, at
potentially lethal. It is included Via e-mail depressed — which you do first it gets 'sticky', then it just
only to make the writer's point. when you hold in the button stays in. Very satisfying.
Thermocouples that work in the with aflame logo on it while All of the faulty
Ihate to contradict the editor of pilot flames of gas appliances firing the pilot ignitor —asmall thermocouples had gone high
such an august publication, but really are thermocouples. plate on the 'inside' end is resistance, about 4-5f1. I
the thermocouples used to Thermostats in fridges and pushed into contact with the suspect that the cold welds fail
control flame-failure devices on boilers are not. Typical armature. —possibly due to migration
gas appliances are thermocouple voltage — In operation, you have to hold effects, but not temperature
thermoelectric devices. If they excluding platinum-rhodium — in the button until the cycling fatigue, as by and large
were not, it would not be is 40pV/K. thermocouple has produced they are not cycled.
possible to bodge afailed Running at just below red heat enough power to hold this plate Perhaps somebody else can
appliance with an AA cell. (400°C) you get about 16mV. on the armature unaided. explain the failure mechanism?
Ido agree that the use of what But this is avery low Incidentally, Iinvestigated On reflection, Ithink, that it's
is almost alab-curiosity impedance generator, so you some faulty thermocouples and not surprising that this query
phenomenon to actually do can get 10mA or so into alû anew 'good' one this arose. The majority of
something significant in the big load. afternoon, and can confirm the electronic engineers are just not
chunky world is acause for In agas valve, this flows following: Off-load, in agas conditioned to consider that
wonder. through amoving-coil motor — cooker flame, the good something normally used as a
Chris Bu!man like aminiature loudspeaker — thermocouple produces a sensor can actually produce
Bedford that holds open adiaphragm potential difference of about enough energy to do something
valve. You actually open it by 25mV and has aresistance of useful —merely by obeying
With regard to Graham Cox's twiddling the control knob less than 0.1a Ohm's law.
letter in the May edition about when you light the pilot flame. On-load Ibelieve that it can There is amoral, of course.
domestic thermocouples, they This lets the incoming gas easily produce 2-3W. At 40- For assistance, read Alexander
are most definitely pressure open abigger 50pV/°C, this equates to a Calandra.' There, now I've
thermocouples rather than the diaphragm valve which, in turn, flame temperature of about probably said too much.
capillaries or bimetallic systems lets the gas through to the 650-700°, allowing for the fact Steve Garnett
that you would normally find in burner. that the 'cold' junction is Via e-mail
athermostat. When you press It is agas-pressure probably also rather warm.
the button to release the pilot mechanical servo. If you take an This particular example in Reference
gas valve, you are also closing old gas valve to pieces, you will fact produces so much power 1. Williams, J. (Ed) 1991
the air gap between the solenoid find that it is very complicated, that it has asecondary cutout — 'Analog Circuit Design —Art,
and armature. but the principle is as I've probably abimetallic strip Science and Personalities',
When the couple is hot described. thermostat —wired in series Newnes: pp 3-4, 'Barometers
enough, the tiny current John Woodgate with it as an additional safety and Analog Design.'
generated is enough to hold the Via e-mail cutout on the boiler it controls.
armature in place. The reason This is not wired in pyro, but Just got the May 2000 issue.
that asmall signal can do this is Basically, agas valve does not seem to interfere with The effective source impedance
that it only has to hold the valve incorporates an electrical the thermocouple/gas valve of athermocouple is
open as you, the user have 'ratchet' comprising acoil operation. proportional to junction area.
already opened it. wound around an armature, as While experimenting with the Therefore, build abig enough
A number of manufacturers in the sketch. good thermocouple, it was thermocouple and you could
use asmall brass fitting that The gas valve is asoft-iron surprising how little heat was get enough current to weld with
intercepts this signal and routes plunger, lightly spring loaded in actually required to hold in the —theoretically, anyway.
it via an over-temperature its 'out' position. It has aflat actuator plunger —just aquick Chris Eccles
switch. The Ideal Elan central plate on the 'outside' end, waft in the gas flame for afew Via e-mail

506 ELECTRONICS WORLD June 2000

 LETTERS

There's no mouse
on my knee
some PC software they've designed for the We could have an immediate cut in
Navy. Hmm... OK. He then goes on to tell us income tax —some 10-12 pence in the Apologies to readers who have tried to
about aguided artillery shell —but then fails to pound perhaps —because there would be no find the company that supplies the mouse
mention that the technology was developed need for adefence budget. that sits on one's knee. There's two
10-12 years ago by private industry —at no The government would receive atruly companies by the name of NMI and only
cost to the taxpayer. massive cash windfall to spend on one stocks mice. The one you want is
Oh dear. 12000 employees and education, NHS, policing and welfare. NMI at 12 Lichfield Close, Newcastle
£1000000000 p.a? Ithink I'd have to back Generals, admirals, air commodores and the upon Tyne NE3 2YW, tel. 0191 214
the treasury. like would love it —they'd all receive 6704. [Link]
But why stop with DERA? Why not flog astronomical rises àla Cedric Brown.
the lot off? Split it into four bits —Army, The decision to use the military would carriers, perhaps, so you could invest in the
Navy, Air Force and odds & sods —and still rest with the government. The four Navy. Imight choose to support the RAF.
float it off. No seriously; think about it: services would raise funds by selling Richard Wilson could invest in DERA —
contrary to what Richard Wilson says there defence insurance. and show his concern by giving them even
is still an awful lot to sell off. MoD owns We'd have no more 'Air-borne Early more than he does now.
more land than all the privatised industries Warning' type fiascos. But most Like Lady Thatcher said —it's about
put together. It almost certainly owns more importantly you would be empowered to giving the consumer choice.
assets, so selling it would raise atruly support the service of your choice. You R M Burfoot Bristol
enormous sum. might think the Navy needs abrace of new

Blumlein line sub-microsecond pulses and 4,849, Apr 1964. appeared within afew months of
The recent biography of A.D. relativistic electron beams. Ido Fitch later went on to develop each other. Robert Alexander's,
Blumlein Electronics World, Jan not remember the name of the ringing Marx generator at 'The inventor of stereo: the life
2000, makes fascinating reading Blumlein being mentioned. Maxwell, San Diego, and and work of Alan Dower
for many reasons, and not least In 1967 Ireturned to pulsed Howell developed the spiral Blumlein' (Focal Press) has
because of the interest shown in work, joining Patt Flynn's team generator (rudely christened the been widely publicised. Ishould
EW/WW for some years over the to design and build Charlie's toilet roll) commercially for like to draw your attention to
contrast between his many then brainchild, a5MV, 100kA, flash X-Ray generation. Russell Burns' The life and
achievements and the former 7Ons generator, which wé called Like Blumlein, Charlie Martin times of AD Blumlein', which
dearth of recognition and of a Eros. Ibelieve that it is still rarely published in the open was published in January by the
biography. operational. literature, but on the rare Institution of Electrical
The biography covers avery By then Charlie had already occasion one of his famous Engineers (IEE). This is amajor
large amount of his work in enthused his own team, devised internal notes was published in scholarly, yet very readable,
great detail —especially that of the giant double-concentric later years, Proc. IEE, Vol. 80, treatment of Blumlein's life.
stereo reproduction and of transmission line and enthused No 6, 934, Jun 1992, Blumlein The author details Blumlein's
television. But take even more the Americans at Sandia, was included, as he was also in work on transmission, mono and
heart for asmall community in Livermore, Naval Research Adler's Pulse Power Formulary, stereo recording and
the UK and alarger community Labs, Physics International and 1989; North Star Research reproduction, television and
in the USA that have celebrated elsewhere. Corporation. Perhaps Imay radar. His writing is also
the great man outside electronics Someone with abetter claim one of the earlier informed throughout by Burns'
for at least 30 years. This memory, or records, than myself published mentions of the close study of taped recordings
appears to be little known in the may know the exact date and Blumlein; J. of Phys. E, Vol.6, (now in the National Sound
wider electronics field, so circumstances, but as you will 1223, 1973. Archives) of the reflections and
perhaps Imay be permitted in have guessed, by 1967 the The Blumlein principle is also recollections of Blumlein's wife.
retirement to play the (faulty) 'pulse-forming line' had become well known among the users and Doreen, and his best friend JB
ancient mariner. 'the Blumlein'. Succeeding makers of thyratrons, especially Kaye. Burns has worked in
Blumlein's patent generations of the pulsed-power the experts at EEV-Marconi at close contact with the Blumlein
specification 589127, Oct 10 community in the UK and USA Chelmsford and, as afinal, but family and the book carries a
1941 refers to adouble have always known it by that pleasant, irony, in recent years Foreword by Blumlein's eldest
transmission-line pulse name. Harry Kitchin, of Bournlea son, Simon.
generator for high voltages. It The size of the Eros Blumlein Instruments has made a For those familiar with the
enables the full charge voltage would have surprised the man Blumlein-based high-voltage history of the efforts to obtain a
to be outputted, compared with himself — at about 30ft long and generator for the great man's old biography of Blumlein, note that
asingle line in which only half Ilft outside diameter of establishment at Malvern. both of these two new books are
the charge voltage outputs to the concentric steel tubes with 10in EThornton entirely independent of the
matched load. of oil insulation. For many years Tetbury efforts of the late Francis
In his specification, distributed it was the largest in the UK, but Gloucestershire Thompson. It is not clear
(LC) lines are considered, but was already well dwarfed by whether any of the Blumlein
coaxial lines work identically. some American giants. The name of Alan Dower material collected by Thompson
He was obviously interested in Independently, Roy Fitch and Blumlein is known to historians will be made public and, if it is,
driving radar modulators. Vernon Howell at Aldermaston of electronics as one of the key whether it will add to what
In 1960 Iworked for ashort published apaper on novel figures in the formative years of Burns and Alexander have to
period for the late Charlie forms of high-voltage pulse electronic engineering. tell us.
Martin at AWRE, Aldermaston generation, extending the idea of It has long been amatter of Robin Mellors-Bourne
near the start of his vector inversion and adding on regret that no comprehensive Director of Publishing
groundbreaking work on the an idea inherent in Blumlein's biography has been available — Institution of Electrical
generation of multi-megavolt patent; Proc. IEE, Vol.111, No until now, when two books have Engineers

June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

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CIRCLE NO.110 ON REPLY CARD CIRCLE NO.131 ON REPLY CARD

PROGRAMMERS
TO ADVERTISE
•Hand held and bench top

YOUR CURRENT
•Single socket to 16 gang
•Stand alone and PC based
*DOS and Windows 3.1/95/NT
•Fast algorithms

CATALOGUE /
•Vast range of adaptors:-
-PLCC, QFP, SOIC,
-SSOP. BOA, etc...
Tel: +44(0) 181 953 9292

CD ROM
Email: sales@[Link]
Web: [Link]

CIRCLE NO.132 ON REPLY CARD

CONTACT
PAT BUNCE FOR
DETAILS
Adhesives, Aerosols & Cleaning
Supplies
DatacomfTelecom, Cables &
Connectors

TEL: 0181 652 8339

Test & Measurement
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FAX: 0181 652 3981

CIRCLE NO.731 ON REPLY CARD
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ARTICLES FOR SALE WANTED

POWER SUPPLY DESIGN BEST PRICES PAID
Switched Mode PSU RF DESIGN Rack Enclosures FOR VALVES eg KT88. PX25
EL37 DA100 - CASH WAITING!
Power Factor Correction
designed to your specification
SERVICES New and Used most sizes
16U to 50U side and rear panels
Wide range of valves
purchased and supplied
mains distribution 19" Panel mounts
Tel/Fax: 01243 842520 All aspects of RF optima eurocraft. Prices from £45 .cat Visitors please phone for an appointment
BIllington Export Ltd. Billingshurst,
e-mail: eugen kus@[Link] M&B Radio
hardware development 86 Bishopsgate Street Leeds LS1 4BB
Sussex RH14 9EZ

Lomond Electronic Services Tel 0113 2702114 Fax. 0113 2426881

billingtonexportlitdC btinternet con,

considered from Tel: 01403 784961 Fax: 01403 783519

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[M3 D. S. G. SPEDITION LIMITED 1%ATERBEACH ELECTRONICS

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SERVICES
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ORANS
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TOP PRICES PAID

rom
Concept [Link]
1
ELECTRONIC PROFESSIONALS
For all your valves,
tubes, semi conductors
and IC's.
Production
Eiectronis design and engineering services
tor the new millennium'
with the
Langrex Supplies Limited
1Mayo Road. Croydon. Surrey CRO 20F
TEL: 020 8684 1166 FAX: 020 8684 3056
Embedded control
telecommunication products
Dater ornmunir Mien products
SM PSU and battery inanagernent
Wifeless transmission systems
POWER TO PURCHASE your products.
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PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS — Quick

VDesigner
Systems

Service Design and Manufacture for Prototypes

Call Pat Bunce

or Production. Agar Circuits. Unit 5. 308
Albertbridge Road, Belfast BTS 4GX. Tel: 02890
738897. Fax: 02890 731802. E-mail:
[Link] Total Service
Analogue and digital. mechatronies.
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(Germany '14912461 61 4259. technical authoring. model making.

patbunce@[Link]
Fluid and Thermodynamics.
produslion, e. ,[Link].
Cyber Developments Ltd
CIRSIM. Circuit simulation program for
Tel. 020 8940 1676 Fax: 020 8948 7258
Windows. Circuits up to 100 nodes. Graphical
E-Mall: papawhisky in [Link]
output. Many examples. £10. Tel: 01753 643384.

510 June 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

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 WINRADIO ®
TAKiNG THE EUROPEAN RADi0 MARKET BY STORM
FREEPHONE 0800 0746263 TO PLACE A CRED1TCARD ORDER
Receive a FREE Mini-Cone Antenna With Every WR-3100 order!'

JOIN THE TRUNKED RADIO REVOLUTION WITH YOUR WiNRADIO RECEIVER!

1. Enjoy multiple, major trunk tracking modes The WINRADIO %eking Option*
2. Automatic traffic following &sophisticated control panel Trunking systems are used by public safety, transportation,
3. Take comfort in the automatic volume control business, law enforcement, government, military and other
4. Single &dual receiver modes organisations. This software includes major trunking modes:
5. Convenient inbuilt electronic logger and database Motorola SmartNet' and MPT1327.
6. Comes complete with an inbuilt traffic recorder
7. Full XRS- compliant technology ONLY £81.07 inc vat

TAKE ALOOK AT WiNFtADiO's DIGITAL SUITE

1. WEFAX /HF Fax The DSP applet provided with the WR3100i
2. Packet Radio for HF and VHF spectrum monitor ISA card (£995+VAT) allows
3. Aircraft Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) continuous control of audio bandwidth and other
4. Audio Oscilloscope, real time Spectrum Analyzer with signal conditioning functions.
calibration cursors
•Fa. bi•
5. Squelch-controlled AF Recorder ONLY £81.07 inc vat
6. DTMECTSS decode and analyse (requires SoundBlaster 16 compatible sound card)

WINRADIO. PC RECEIVERS NEW EXTERNAL MODELS

Available as either an internal ISA card EXTERNAL WINRADIO", "It's software is excellent.. more versatile and less idiosyncratic
that slips inside your PC, or as an external We are now able to offer you a than that of the loom IC-PCR1000"
(portable) unit. WiNRADi0 combines the complete range of stand-alone WRTH 1999 Review
power of your PC with the very latest in WiNRADi0 comms systems:
• WR1000e -£359 INC VAT "Five stars for its
synthesised receivers.
• WR1550e -£429 INC VAT
mechanical design"
i=i"1 1243.7711.11/14 •-
WRTH 1999 Review Fie tete
YOU CAN USE WiNRAD10 ,. SCANNING • WR3100e -£1169 INC VAT IRK
.1
NM a MI towilow
PC COMMUNICATION RECEiVERS FOR: Each stand-alone unit connects Mi MINIM
"Most Innovative
Broadcast, media monitoring, professional & to your PC through either the Receiver Mee"?.
I

amateur radio communications, scanning, basic RS232, or through an

WRTH 1998 Awards
spot frequency, whole spectrum monitoring, optional PCMCIA adapter (for
instrumentation surveillance and recording. high speed control).
The units are powered through
If you're after the ultimate receiver-in-a-PC either your existing 12v
with full DSP then smile and say, "Hello" to supply, or through an
the new WR3100I-DSP with its hardware for (optional) NiMH
real-time recording, signal conditioning and rechargeable 12v battery
decoding applications. It's all you need. pack.

Model Name/Number WA-1000i &WR-1000e WR- 501 &WR-1550e WR-3100i &WR-3100e

Construction of internals WR-1000iNVR-15501-3100iDSP- In ternal full length ISA cards
Construction of externals WR-1000e/WR-1550e -3100e -eMemel RS232/PCMCIA (optional)
Frequency range 0.5-1300 MHz 0.15-1500 MHz 0.15-1500 MHz
AM,SSB/CW,[Link]-W AM,[Link],CW,[Link]-W AM.L.S13,USB,CW,FM-N,FM-W
Modes
100 Hz (5 Hz BFO) 10 Hz (1 Hz for SSB and CW) 10 Hz (1Hz for SSB and CW)
Tuning resolution
IF bandwidths 6kHz (AM/SSB), 2.5 kHz(SSB/CW). 6kHz (AM) 2.5 kHz(SSB/CW), 6kHz (AM)
17 kHz (FM-N), 230 kHz (W) 17 kHz (FM-N), 230 kHz (W) 17 kHz (FM-N), 230 kHz (W)

Receiver type PLL-based triple-cony. superhet

Scanning speed 10 ch/sec (AM), 50 ch/sec (FM)
200mW 200mW 200mW
Audio output on card
8cards 8cards 6-8 cards (please ask)
Max on one motherboard
65 dB 70 dB 85dB
Dynamic range
no x2 kHz x2 kHz
IF shift (passband tuning)
no -use optional DS software YES (ISA card ONLY)
DSP in hardware
no no yes (for ISA card)
IRO required
yes yes
Spectrum Scope
yes ets yes
Visitune
yes y3s yes (also DSP)
Published software API
£299 inc vat £369 inc vat £'1169.13 Inc
Internal ISA cards
£429 inc vat £1169.13 inc (hardware DSP only internal)
External units £359 inc vat

PCMCIA Adapter (external): £69.00 inc vat when bought with 'e' series unit (otherwise: £99 inc vat)
PPS NIMH 12v Battery Pack & Chrgr: £99 inc vat when purchased with 'e' series unit (otherwise. £139 inc vat)
The WINRADi0 Digital Suite: £74.99 inc vat when purchased with aWiNRADIO receiver (otherwise £81.05 Inc vat)

For your free (no obligation) info pack & WiNRADi0 demo disk go to: [Link] If you don't have access to the internet then by all
means feel free to phone/fax us. *Trunked radio transmissions should only be received & decoded with permission of the originator of the transmission.

Please send all your enquiries to: info@[Link] or Telephone: 0800 0746 263 or +44 (0)1245 348000 •Fax: +44 (0)1245 287057
Broadercasting Communication Systems, Unit B, Chelford Court, Robjohns Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 3AG, United Kingdom
E&OE WINRAD10 and Visitune are trademarks of Rosetta Labs Australia -copyright Broadercasting Comnu' mlcaticAl ,
Broadercasting Communication Systems is atrading name of USP Networks Ltd. •Free gifts are subject to avai'
Registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners
CIRCLE NO. 102 ON REPLY CARD
 For development
or production...
A range of truly portable, Universal and EPROM/Flash programmers for every need
• Support tor all types ot devices including 8 mid LI 1111.1111ny, op lo 28 hit. PLDs,
CPU )
s,and over 3(() microcontrollers
• Uses the parallel port of any PC or laptop
• Program and verify low voltage devices down to 1.8V
• Low cost package adapters available for PLCC, PSOP, TSOP, QFP, SUMP, SOIC and KGA
• No additional modules or adapters required for any DIP device
• Compatible with DOS. Windows' 95/98, Windows' NT
• Powerful and compnbensive software interface is easy to use
• Uses PSU/Recharger supplied, or batteries for real portability
• lot ludes Chiptester for ITLKMOS, DRAM and SRAM devices
• Optional EPROM/RAM emulators also available

...the be
Model Supports Prit y
1F',\I., ,,tro IV41 , .1/ , 1,,,, mil,f ,4 HI I", iPROM. tr PROM. (ladi & Setial PR( ,
\I /2" -,

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,,,edn1.1.1er IV48 As LP/gager (V48. plus HPROMs. PA1 s. GAR, (.11 IT. L-P ,•
and 8748/S1 niii roccintrollers

programmers
Na,i',nudger lN/48 As SpertillIdeef LV48, plus onv 100 snit. Mt ontrolleo
ox ludo* 87( 48/S1/1%, PR's. AVIts. 89( moo, SU,
MC705/711, SAB-CSIo, TM'. 520'(70, list, cr )e eti ...
IULIY UNIVIRSAl

I\.1, ,l',,rtably 40-pin version of Microimage' IT/411 • 1.(11 & Kes p -'

are here...
The new Matrix Programming System offers the most complete,
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applications at an extremely competitive price from £1,995
• levels lut device support: M(Ino, only, or Universal support for memory
devices up to 128Mbil, PLDs, Pl IKan(' over 300 Microcontrollers
• 4 or 8 independent programming sites per box
• I>aisy-chaining allows up to 48 centrally controlled sites
• Very high throughput Iprogram/verify time in seconds): 28E400 = 4/2.5,
28E16083 = 18/12, 28164015 = 155/60
• Iow cost passive socket modules give support for DIP, PLCC, PSOP, TSOP, QFP etc.
• Modules are not device specific giving major savings in cost of ownership
• true low voltage support down to 1.8V, plus marginal verification
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• Manufacturer approved algorithms for accurate programming and maximum yield
• Iull on -board diagnostics
• Compatible with Windows' 95/98 and Windows` NT
• Universal input power supply -90-260V, 50/601-12

All ICE Technology programmers come with lifetime FREE software

Matrix From updatest and technical support, 12 month warranty and 10-day money-
back guarantee. For complete Device Support lists, FREE software
£1995 updates, Demo software and full product information,
just visit our website at [Link]

...and here, [Link]

ILL , Penistone Court, Sheffield Road, Penistone, Sheffield. S36 6HP. UK
tel: +44 (0)1226 767404 •fax: +44 (0)1226 370434 •email: sales@[Link]
ICE T, 5370 Gulf of Mexico Drive, Suite 204B, Longboat Key. FL 34228. USA
tel: 1(941) 387 8166 •fax: 1(941) 387 9305 •email: icetechusa@[Link]

ORDER NOW VIA OUR CREDIT CARD HOTLINE :+44 (0) 1226 767404
ALL PRODUCTS IN STOCK

tCustom software and enhanced priority device support is also available for all programmer platforms All prices are exclusive of carriage and VAT
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