= THE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONICS anrireey aU aadprcreOns CONTENTS February 1992 Volume 18 Number 197 Correcton: Alexander Graham Bell” December 1991) "The last ine ofthis article has unfortunately been omitted the ‘entire last sentence ofthe article among others: + ADIDAMIO for PC + 8051/8032assemblercoure + Measurements on power supplies FM tuner Patt 1 LC meter AF drive indicator The flat-top 80 antenna Simple timer Front cover ‘The PC interface (Iter-IC (Communication) isa Pilips invention that has been in use for many years 0 enable ICs 1 communicate with cach other in complex electronic equipment such as radios, video recorders and {elevision ets The insertion card shown here (and described on pages 36-40) puts your PC in control of up to ten FC compatible ICs, (Copyright ©1862 Elektuur BY ABC RAEN 46 Dual-output, switch-mode regulator from Maxim Integrated Products AUDIO & HI-FI 26 Capacitors in AF circuits by H. Baggot 18 PROJECT: RAM extension for mini by A. Rigby 36 PROJECT: FC interface for PCs by J. Ruifell 36 COURSE: 8051/80: by Dr. Ing. M. Ohsman DeSean PWM temperature controller by K.A. Nigim, B.Sc., Ph.D., MIEEIE 5 assembler ~ Part 1 Nene 44 Why use lithium cells? by Bill Higgins 52 Direct digital synthesis ~ DDS by Dipl. Ing. G. Kleine PSone es 41 Indoor/outdoor temperature indi by L. Lemon POWER SUPPLIES & BATTERY CHARGERS 62 PROJECT: Switeh: by J. Ruffell tor ade power supply Drones PROJECT: Improving portable radio performance by Richard Q. Maris, G2BZQ 24 PROJECT: &C high-pass filter for active antennas from an idea by J. Becker 30 PROJECT: Audio/video switching unit by T. Giffard Rete mane no neen 48° Greater capacity in submarine optical cables, by Bill Presdce, B.Sc., CEng., MIEE cD Menon 21 PROJECT: Measurement amplifier by J. Ruifell 60 PROJECT: Mini square-wave generator by K. Schoenhott MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION Electronics scene 11-13; Events 13; New books 67; Readers comer 68; Readers’ services 69; Switchboard 70; Terms of Business 70; Index of advertisers 74 8051/8032 assembler course, p. 56 Audio/video switching unit, p. 30 Mini square-wave generator, p. 60 ELEKTOR FLECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992ELECTRONICS SCENE BS5750 CERTIFICATE OF QUALITY FOR MAPLIN ‘APLIN. Professional Supplies, the {rade division of one of Europe's largest distributors of electronic components and products, Maplin Electronies PLC, has bbeen awarded the British Standards Institute 'BSS750 Certificate of Quality’. To mark the occasion, David Trippier, RD. JP, MP, Min- ister for the Environment and Countryside, paida visitto the recently established Maplin warehouse in Wombwell, Barnsley. Roger Allen, Maplin managing director, said that increasingly customers are demand- ing BSS7S0 quality standard products. "The already high quality of Maplin products will bbe enhanced by the certificate: the culmina: tion of extensive assessment by the BSO ‘Quality Assurance team. Quality will remain the prime factor in all ouroperationsand.cus- tomers can be assured that all our staff, en- gineers, research, sales, marketing and wa house dispatch teams are fully aware of the essential need to give total customer confi dence and satisfaction Maplin Professional Supplies, BO, Box 777, Rayleigh $S6 8LU, England, PERSONAL SATELLITE ‘COMMUNICATOR STC Intemational Marine produces a satel lite communication system that packs neatly {into a robust briefcase. This enables it to be carried to almost any part of the world to pro- vide on-the-spot communication. The Inter national Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT) operatesasystemof satellites that provides high-quality mobile telecom- munication services, including commercial, safety and distress applications at sea, on Jand and in the ai, throughout the world. Mostusers of the INMARSAT systemuse INMARSAT-A ship-earth-stations that em- ploy power-driven parabolic antennas of lunder one metre in diameter, generally housed in a radome and, in shipboard use, ‘mounted high in the superstructure. IN. MARSAT-A can support high-quality, di- reet-dial telephone, telex, facsimile and data INMARSAT-C microterminals, used for two-way dala message services, are small enough to fit any boat or vehicle or can be hhand-carried, INMARSAT-C services have potential fora wide variety of uses, including, general telex and electronic mail communi- Cations, point-to-multipoint information dis- tribution, remote monitoringand control, po sition reporting and fleet management ‘Two important facilities provided by IN- MARSAT and forming part of the global maritime distress and safety system (GMDSS) are due to be implemented this ‘month. They are ship-to-shore distress alert- ing and enhanced group calling (EGC), ich enables messages to be sent to a spe- cifie group of ships rather than all ships ‘within range. The selectivity of EGC has considerable advantages as far as safety is concerned. It tenables messages to be sent only to ships nearest to a vessel in distress and permits them to respond to the call without inconve- niencing other vessels, For use in the low-cost services provided by INMARSAT-C, STC International developed the Mascot-C range of five low- ‘cost terminals that are rugged, compact and flexible enough to cover most ofthe require~ ments of installation on board a variety of vessels, as well as satisfying limited equip- ‘ment budgets, ‘The omnidirectional antenna is contained inaminiradome,amere 190 mm in diameter and weighing just 1.6 kg, which can be in- stalled to give aclear view of spa tthe top of the Mascot terminal range is the Mascot-C IWS, which uses the powerful STCACL Type M30 intelligent workstation for message preparation and operatorcontrol that has a colour or monochrome display. For operation in environments where the elements and working conditions are consid- ered hostile, the range includes a Mascot-C ruggedized laptop personal computer as an alternative to the M30. ‘The range is completed by the Nomad, a personal global satellite communication system engineered into a tough briefcase weighing only 22 kg and measuring 458x935x215 mm. To establish global con: tact, you only need to gain a clear view of the sky, open the case to reveal the omnici rectional antenna and transceiver unit, the laptop computer and the A4 printer, plug it into a suitable supply, and communicate. ‘A carefully devised menu makes opera odicedondpbihed by ELEKTOR ——Subseriptons: verses eins: POBox si ELECTRONICS Pubishion) ‘Wild Wie Subcoptise SevlerLak. FRANCE TEL AVIV 41500 (Un Gib Reed Far lke biter Mt. Avrahay ‘Edcpubisher: Len Seymour Paty Rox Te Tou NETHERLANDS. “echnieal alor:) Beng TICEMUBST 78S 7H P39, 59180 NIEPPE. Blsie BV ‘atria Otic: Teg USS) 20ST (Anmw!) lure DRS. MeyerG CP Racdedeet Per Teckpucsral 2 Don Haase to S81200 65 erm) GERMANY 6191 Vk BEEK Br Road eee: 088 200816 Neal hor sag Gb Elion: PEL Keosmahes LONDON SWiK. or +4 80200 686 ermal Sistevtd Sune 25 PORTUGAL ral Sia) AACHEN Fer Bent Lt. ‘Wepbone: 061-577 1684 Nason!) Barwpean Oe: TEdue EA. Krampebauer RD. etn 52-l (es 34 808771688 rerio) PO Bon GREECE 1000 LISBOA ‘ela 917008 (LEC 190 A EE Bln EFE aor: ees Segue Fae RL S74 ISSA | Te Neheranss ena ‘stat ors SIRT491S5 Utravionl) ee 481463894. {678 Youh—ATHIENA Rew Haoromea Apc ‘eee 017 te ob aor Xiao Calle Manes 13 EC Advising PRB Lied ax 18) 493701 MUNGARY 2805 MADRID Waele Tera “Mandglag Detar: MM. Landon Eek ltl fy Bator: Asis Garten Buc ‘CHELTENHAMOLSO 1TH 1018 Bade ‘SWEDEN eepone DA) 5107) Disribton ayy 1 stone Prose A au (242) 2625 SEYMOUR ear Lato Aree Bos 80 1270 London Read INDIA 1410s HUDDINGE Intentional Adverts LoxDONSWi6 tit leon Eestonis PUT Lad itor il Cosa Ungeversmatcapy) Hckar bs (Chere ling {USA A CANADA 20.800 75 ‘Printed one Netacsndsby NDE S00, Prator Road Gra Roa) ek levis USA 6190 AB BEEK Testernce ‘BOMBAY <00007 PO Bo Ke ‘De Nabe aloe CR Cantar PETERBOROUGH Ni Oast-0876 Westone +51 6389844 ISRAEL ular: and 7 Det Fax e31 26379161 Bains! ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992,BB turcrnosiesscev tion simple to learn and easy 10 use, The power load is only 80. VA and the supply may be 100/220 V10%, 49-400 Hzsingle phase, or 10-32 V dec, The equipment is de- signed for operation over the temperature range 0-55 °C and anon-condensing relative humidity of up to 95%. The data rate is 600 bivs and a 256 kbyte RAMisprovided. Terminal interfaces are the CCITT recognized V249-pin female D-con- rector and 100-9600 baud ITAS code. The navigator interface provided is the CCITT recognized VIO Special with NMEAOI83 interface and multi-drop addressing, and a BNC female connector ‘Transmissions made virally anywhere inthe world from the mobile unit are readily eked up by satellite and beamed back to a ‘coast earth station, ‘STC International Marine, Intelco Hou 302 Commonside East. Mitcham, Surrey. England CR4 1YT. ‘TELECOMMUTING ~ THE CALL OF THE WIL ‘AVE youever thought how nice it would be to simply switch on your desktop ‘computer when you are ready for workrather than face the daily trials and frustrations of Scotland's Highlands and Islands Enter- prise (HIE), the development body for much of the country's more remote and beautiful territory, is so certain that there are many people just longing to avoid the problems of commuting that it has invested £5 million in a £16 million project to install new digital exchanges at 64 towns and to upgrade cabling During the current year, people in the ‘main population centres of the Highlands and Islands should get greatly improved tele~ pphone lines and should be able to obtain ISDN. This stands for Integrated Services Digital Network, which offers a set of ser- vices suchas very high speed data transmis- sion, faxing and video-conferencing. It is reaching the Hi time as it is introduced into London, Manch- ester and Edinburgh, but ahead of most other cities, and probably a decade earlier than British Telecom could justify on commercial ‘erounds ‘On the Isle of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland, a “tele-cottage” has been set up to introduce people to personal computers and togive training. Itis one of four pilot schemes being set up by HIE and the hope is that it \will help people in rural areas to discover in- formation technology (IT) One company that provides an example is, ‘Crossaig, on the Scottish mainland, which offers a service abstracting and indexing ma- terial for medical publishers. It has begun 10 use editors operating from home, who re- ceive and return material transmitted cheaply at very high speed over ISDN connections ‘The development body sees ISDN as a way of keeping existing bodies in the Highlands and Islands up to date, as well as encouraging the creation of operations based on tele: workers ‘Although ISDN has been under develop: ‘ment for 10 years, international standards have been agreed only recently. It uses opti- cal fibres and coaxial cable to carry digital data at 64 Kbit per second, Islay and Jura Council for Voluntary Ser vice, High Street, Bowmore, Islay, Scotland PA43 TIE. CAR ALARM WITH DIGITAL CODE. /O new products from Electronize De- sign, akey-ring transmitter and dash-top, receiver, offer high security, digitally en- coded remote control for the company’s ex- istingalarms. Witharange of 59046 possible codes, the system is unusual in thatthe user can set the Code used. This has obvious ad vantages for fleet operators who may want the same code for more than one vehicle or people who simply want several key sets for one vehicle. The transmitter uses a multiple-pulse infra-red signal that has a range of about $ metres and is difficult to crack with elec~ tronic scanning devices. The low-profile re- ceiver is designed (o sit in full view on top ‘ofthe dashboard, To warn off intruders, it has ‘high-intensity ted LED that flashes contin. uuously when the alarm is set. A green light flashes once when a correct code switches ‘off the alarm, so you always know whether the alarms is on or off. ‘The transmitter and receiver are available separately and cos! £17.95 and £26.55 re- spectively. A complete kit of transmitter, e- ceiver, alarm and siren costs £62: assembled ready for fitting, it costs £77, Electronize Design, 2 Hillside Four Oaks, Sution Coldfield, BE B74 4DQ; Phone 021 308 5877 Road, gland FLEXIBLE GANG PROGRAMMING ROGRAMMER | manufacturers ICE Technology are able to oifer ery flexible solutions to many different gang program- ‘ming requirements. Their systems are based fon the Speedmaster 8000 programmer, which can operate either linked to a PC or in a stand-alone mode. The base unit can pro- ‘gram EPROM up to 32 pins, while systems cean be built around this unit to program mi- crocontrollers, programmable logic devices and PLCC devices. The Speedmaster $000 is one of the fastest, if not the fastest gang. programmer around. Using manufacturers’ approved al gorithms, it can program eight 27C256 EPROMS in about 5 seconds, ICE Technology Lid, Unit 4, Penistone Cour, Station Buildings, Penistone, England $30 GHG; Phone (0226) 767 404, PORTABLE, SATELLITE TV ANTENNA. PORTASAT is atightwcig, portable an nna that enables the owners of cara vans, mobile homes and pl continue to receive satelite TV programmes from Astra, ECSH andall higher power satel Tite, Used on a balcony or patio, Portasat also offers an alternative (0 viewers who are un: able or unwilling to have a permanent, wall- ‘mounted antenna installation Designed for simplicity and convenier the antenna can be set up and taken down ‘within minutes, consists ofa flat, Fem thick circular zone plate of 60cm diameter that is ‘mounted within a rectangular, tubular frame. Erection is simple and requires no specialist knowledge or tools. With the assembly lying flat on the pround, one edge of the frame is raised: the antenna pivots within the frame and is secured at the correct angle for opti ‘mum reception by a support strut. The as- sembly is then pointed into the direction of jeasure craft 10 ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992the satelite and any final adjustment made by a serew on the strut The assembly weighs less than 4 kg and. folds away flat to a size of 75x622 em for easy stowage and transport Portaset Ltd, P.O. Box 62, Letchworth, Hens, England: Telephone (0462) 742 854, CATALOGUE OF ENCLOSURES, FROM SAREL VAILABLE from Sarel, the European closure multi-national sive 200-page, full colour eatal ing their extensive standard range of enclo- sures: everything from small plastic boxes to wall-mounted enclosures and. floor- standing cabinets. Sarel Ltd, Cosgrove Way, Luton, Eng- land LUI 1XL; Telephone (0582) 402 233. ENSURING PERFECT PRINTING screen used in the production of elec- {onic assemblies is seen minutely ex- ‘amined with high-tech scanning equipment toensure perfection. Itisjust one of the many tests and inspections carried out on precision printing sereens and masks by DEK Printing Machines—a world leader in a growing in- dustry, Screen printing plays an essential role in the production of many electronics goods: from the production of complex hybrid cir- cuits on ceramics to the deposition of solder paste in surface mount technology. Major advantages of the screen process over other forms of printing are accuracy and repeatability of deposit thickness on rela tively uneven surfaces. The constant quest for improved products and demands by circuit manufacturers from ELECTRONI CENE all over the world for precision printing sereens and masks of ever higher quality and accuracy have led to the development of a number of new processes by DEK. Signiti- ‘eant among these have been those in tech- niques such as thick emulsions, metal masks and double-etched masks. ‘New procedures and equipment have also been devised to establish, maintain and con- tuol high standards of repeatability at each stage of screen production, including art- work, photography, stretching, coating, sten= cilling and packis DEK Printing Machines Lid, Granby In- dustrial Estate, Weymouth, _ England DT4 9TH; Telephone (0305) 760 760.IMPROVING PORTABLE RADIO PERFORMANCE The performance of the average portable radio (not including the tiny plastic one and the huge ghetto blaster) is usually quite adequate for general domestic and portable listening. Unfortunately, for the more serious DX enthusiast, various limitations appear: however good the audio amplification may be, it can not improve an inadequate signal at the RF input, or a signal which is subject to heavy interference. All is not lost, and the ‘RF pick-up’ performance can be improved with some simple low-cost DIY construction. Simple as the suggestions given here may appear, the results can ‘OST transistor portable radios are bat tery-operated, and can also be plugged into the ac. mains supply for home use. These radios typically operate on LW, MW, SW and VIF FM. In some cases, one oF _mare ofthese bands may be eliminated. The average size will probably be around 28:15s6.5 cm (116,25 inch). For the experiments to be discussed, the following radios were used, and results later be quite dramatic! by Richard Q. Marris G2BZQ cross-checked with other makes: ‘A Grundig Music Boy (30185 em). Coverage: LW, MW, SW (5.9 MFiz to 18 MHz) and VHF FM A Matsui MRS099 (28155 cm). Cover: ‘age: continuous from 150 KHz. #9 30) MHz, plus VHF FM. Modes: AM FM, $B, CW, mono/stereo. The answer to the previously mentioned problems for the DX listener is to improve the antenna system. However, separate dif- ferent treatments are required for the VHF SW, MW and LW bands. The short-wave (SW) bands Most portables have a short telescopic rod antenna. Although this may seem adequate at first sight, a large number of stations are Freee oR (es oon ct Senet 162» 5009 29g tuning capacitor 3 55rop crop Fig. 1. ireult (left) and basic mechanical layout of the antenna for the shortwave bands, ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992being missed completely or obliterated by chaotic interference. If tis possible to fit an external wire antenna, more stations become available, but the interference increases equally. Interference is often directional and consists of other stations, atmospherics, and static electric storms. In addition we have a multitude of ‘man-made electrical inter- ference received from thermostats, TV sets, home computers, vacuum cleaners, electric drills, and motorized vehicles. Legally, of ‘course, all these are fully ‘suppressed’ but in practice much suppression leaves a fot to be desired, and just does not exist in many The antenna shown in Figs. 1a and 1b covers the frequency range from 6 Miz to 26 MHz. It consists of a 413d13.qm (16.5:16.5°) square loop made of aluminium strip, and is resonated with a 2-gang 500+500 pF variable capacitor, C1-C2, with ‘Cain series with one section. A tap, with cro- codil clip and lead, is taken fram the loop to the tip ofthe retracted telescopic antenna on. the portable radio. The tap on the prototype is about 2 cm (34°) ‘up’ from the left-hand ‘comer, giving the best mid-frequency match ‘between the telescopic antenna rod and the larger loop—see Fig, 1a “The drawing in Fig. 1b shows the physi- cal layout, consisting of a wood base on which the radio stands, plus a vertical mem- ber to support the square loop and the reson- ating capacitors, The whole assembly Is unidirectional, as indicated in Fig. 1b, and can stand on a simple turntable to rotate in order to achieve maximum signal and mi ‘mum interference “The construction of the SW antenna isi lustrated in Fig, 2. The base should be sulfi- ciently large to accommodate the radio, and heavy enough to prevent the loop tipping. ‘over. The vertical member is screwed and bracketed to the rear of the base ‘The vertical member should ideally be a good insulating material such as perspex. Falling this, wood was used, thoroughly ried in the airing cupboard, and then, while still warm, given a liberal application of polyurethane varnish, which soaks inas the ‘wood coals. This operation was carried out of doors because of possible toxic fumes. ‘The loop is made of 2m wide, 3-mm thick (0.75x0,125") aluminium strip available in DIY stores. The length used had one round side, and was later bent into a 41.3: 1.3.cm (16\4x1614") squarein a view. A 3-cm (1.25") gap was cut in the centre of the left-hand side, and holes drilled as shown in Fig.2. Next, the loop was fastened to the ver- tical member with brass woodscrews as shown, with the connections made via solder tags fitted under the screw heads. The tuning capacitor, C1+C2, was mounted as in- dicated, with C3 underneath, A short croc lead was clipped on to the retracted antenna tip, after putting the radio on the base (see Fig 1b), (Operation is simply a matter of tuning the radio to the desired frequency, and res- conating the loop to that frequency. Reson= ance manifests itself by an increase in signal, ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 IMPROVING PORTABLE RADIO PERFORMANCE 4 (100mm) crow + solder tag screw + solder tag crow + solder tag XX, WK bracket ora Q N 16.25" x 16.25" (413 x 413mm) loop 0.75" x0.125* (3x 20mm) alus trip (Gee text) 4.25" (32mm) gap in loop ‘cro"clip to radio telescopic antenna 21" x 1.75" x 0.5" (593 x 44 x 13mm) treated wood (see text) 19° x 2.78" x 0.75" (330 x 95 x 20mm) wood base LILILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLN 920027 -V2 90: Fig 2 Rotation of the loop and radio will increase the signal further, and greatly reduce inter- ference and background noise. The results are often quite dramatic: a clean signal is ob- tained where previously it was weak and unintelligible owing to interference. Even more dramatic, especially on the 25-m, 19-m and 16-m broadcast bands, clean long-dis- tance stations have been heard that just did not exist with the extended telescopic an- tenna alone. The VHF FM band In an area where strong VHF FM signals are available, the telescopic antenna may well be adequate. However, in remoter, or hilly areas, reception difficulties are often experi ‘enced. This was found out by many in the UK when Radio 2 moved away from the ‘MW band to FM only. As one well-known disk-jockey was heard to say to a complain- ing listener who had poor reception on FM. with a portable: “Well try moving the radio around the room and waggle the telescopic aerial about” ‘Actually, this non-technical talk hit the nail on the head. The difficulty was well lustrated to the author, using both the Mat- sui and the Grundig, when frequently ‘Cansiruction of the short-wave antenna: visiting a fishing village on the West Dorset coast. There, FM reception is not too good, and Radio 2 was difficult’, except in just one spot in the room, which was standing the radio on top of the heating radiator! ‘The whole problem was solved by locally buyinga ribbon dipoleFM antenna for about £2, hanging it up in the room, and coupling stas shown in Fig. 3. The result was good re ception on all BBC FM channels, plus a num- ber of continental stations The 300-02 ribbon feedline from the an tenna is terminated with a 4-tum coupling loop, made from PVC-covered hook-up wire wound around the retracted telescopic an- tenna, The coupling can be optimized by sliding the coil, right oF left, along the tele- scopic rod. It must be stressed that this was only a temporary expedient which ‘worked, and might prove a project for someone to Took into more seriously. A similar arrange- ment should be possible using, co-axial feed line from an antenna. The medium-wave (MW) band As many of you will know, it is possible, with a good receiver and a good antenna, toThe large outer loop consists of seven closewound turns of wire on a 75 cm (29.5°) former, which has to be fabricated. The wire type is PVC-covered single-strand with a 0.6-mm conductor, and an outside diameter of 1.2 mm, This loop, tuned with a 500-pF variable capacitor (see Fig. 4b), covers frequency range from 510 kHz to 1600 kHz ‘nthe prototype, ie, 588 m to 180 m The 75-cm diameter loop former was made from two standard white Formica strips each 20x5 cm (8:2") wide. One For- mica strip, withthe white surface facing out- ward, was bent round, and the ends glued together with a7.5-cm (3") overlap, produc ing a rather flexible circle. EvoStik wood ad- hesive was used, The second Formica strip was glued around the inside of the circle, with the white surface facing inward, pro- ducing a laminate, 75-cm diameter, S£6.2 V to the supply lines, The resistors in the attenuator (total resistance in the 2 V, 20 V and 200 V ranges>1 MO) ensurethatthe currents through these diodes cannot become too large. In the 200 mV range, the protection is not so good, although even then, Rg limits the current to alargeextent. None theless, some care should be exercised when connecting input signals (start at the 200 V range) In the next stage, based on ICy, an offset from potential divider Ry-Riy-Ps, is added to the measurand (signal being measured). ‘The OP27 functions here as an adder with anamplification of .4, so that the ofset volt- ageatitsoutput ranges from-5.3 Vt0+53V. The amplification is preset with Py. The low- noise OP27 is excellent value for money: itis inexpensive, fast, exhibits little drift and has excellent common-mode rejection. The output stage is based on a Type OP64 ‘opamp, ICs. Like IC,, this stage also inverts the signal, so that its output isin phase with MEASUREMENT AMPLIFIER o feel = SS > : > E J C26, « : Fe ke} Ry f Fig. 4. The printed-circuit board for the measurement amplifier must be cut into two before any construction work is done on it. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 RIG, R35 = 2.7 kd RIT, R37 = 6800 19, A36 = 3.9 ko 39, R41 = 390 0 az, R43 = 4700 P1-P4=1 ko multitum preset Capacitors: C1, C13 = 15 pF trimmer 2, 14=33 pF 68, 67, 618, C19, C26, C30, 635, ©37'= 100 nF 68, 620 = 330 nF 3,12, G21, C2410 uF 25 C10, C11, C22, C23 = 100 nF coraric 625, 629'= 1000 iF 25 V rca C27, C31 = 47 25V C28, C32=22 uF 16V GB =10pF 25V (C34, 038 = 80 pF tirrer Miscellaneous: Kt = 2-way PCB terminal block, pitch 75mm K2 = 16-way male box header K3 = 16-way right-angle male box header a = mains entry with integral DPST switch and fuse holder F1 = fuse, 200 mA, delayed action St, 82 = 2-pole, E-positon rotary ‘switch ‘Tr1 = mains transformer, 2x18 V. 425mA le1-Re8 = DIL relay, 5 V, 380.0 Case 8020x180 mm (8 %6x7%X7 Hain) 2 heat sinks 63K W=) 2G heat sinks 29 KW PCB 910144 Front panel fol S10144-Fsigned for driving low-impedance (down to 150 9) loads; its (continuous) output cur- rent can be as high as 80 mA. It isnot truly proof against short circuits, but, according to the data sheet, it can withstand short cir cuits for up to 10 seconds, A drawback is its dissipation, which makes a heat sink essen- tial. Also, its amplification should not be set below to prevent instability and a tendency to oscillatio The measuring ranges are selected by re- lays Rey-Rey. These are energized by ICa, whose control inputs are TTL compatible and can thus be driven by a computer: The relays make the amplifier slightly more ex pensive, but their use provides electrical in- sulation between analogue and digital cuits. Integrated switches would have been les expensive, but these suffer from too nar- row a voltage range, a high of ‘and imperfect channel separation. ‘To operate the relays manually, two two- pole, four-position rotary switchesarenicedtet (One section of theswitchesactuatestherange indicator LEDs, and the other is connected to the control inputs of IC Note that the interface to enable the am- piifier to be controlled by a computer is still in development: it is hoped to publish its design within a couple of months. Thepowersupply saconventionaldesign providing #15 V and, with the aid of zener diodes Ds and D;, +56 V for the TLC2201s. Note also that the supply voltage for 1Co is taken direct from the rectifier, that is, before stance the regulator it is stabilized by zener diode Dg, This arrangement ensures that any noise pullsescausedby the change-over ofrelay co facts are not transmitted to the amplifier. Construction If the amplifier is constructed on the PCB shown in Fig. 4, no real difficulties should be encountered. Note, however, that before any construction is begun, the board must be cut into two, One section is for the rotary switches and LEDs, and the other for the power supply, attenuators and amplifiers, ‘The smaller section must be mounted di- rectly behind the front panel. Since the ro- tary Switches have six positions (four post tion ones are difficult to obtain), their travel must be blocked at position 4 with the aid of the small washer provided. ‘Owing to its heat dissipation, Ds should. bemounteda few millimetresabove the board. Circuits ICs and IC must be fitted on heat sinks: The two boards are interlinked by a short length of flatcable The input and output sackets on the front panel should be good-quality BNC types. Any connections to and from them should be inscreened cable. The completed amplitier should be in stalled in a suitable metal case: a proposed front pane! layout isshown in Fig. 3 (the foil for thisisavailable through our Readers’ ser~ vices). The mains entry, preferably with tegrated fuse holder, should be fitted at the back of the housing, ‘Calibration Do not compensate the offset of the individ~ tual opamps, since the direct voltage compo- nent of the output signal is a sum set by P> (P). This preset needs to be readjusted only when the amplification hasbeen changed with (Pa). Before commencing the calibration, let theamplifier warmup for about fiveminutes. ‘Coninect a funetion generator tothe input and the probe of an oscilloscope to the junc tion D,-D; (Dy-Dp) Select the 200 V range and set Cy (Cys) and Cog (Cr) to the centre of their travel. Inject a rectangular, 1 kHz sig nal at a level of 10 V. Although the value of C5(Ci-}is shown as820 pF its correct value, owing to the tolerance ofthe other circuit el ‘ements, may lie between 200 pF and 2.2 nF The signal on the screen of the oscilloscope should be rectangular: if it has overshoot or rounded corners, the value of Cs (C; belowered orincreased respectively, Oncethe correct value of these capacitors has been found (and corresponding capacitors fitted), reduce the output of the function generator tol V, and adjust Cy (Cis) with the 20 V rangeselected till the traceon the oscilloscope is rectangular again, Finally, adjust C3, (Css) with the 2 V range selected to reobtain a rectangular signal on the oscilloscope, Ml RC HIGH-PASS FILTER FOR ACTIVE ANTENNAS From an idea by J. Becker Powerful transmitters operating on medium and long waves may cause considerable interference in the reception of short-wave nals. A high-pass filter to suppress the interfering signals is, of course, the solution. Since, however, the active antennas to which such a filter must be added are normally out in the open, desirable to be able to control the filter remotely. OWERFUL meditim-wave or long-wave transmitters operating not far from an ‘active short-wave antenna can cause serious interference in the reception of short-wave signals. Theinterfering signals, whicharegen- erally harmonics and sum frequencies of the transmitter signal, can be suppressed effec- tively by a critically damped high-pass filter at the input of the active antenna described in Ref. 1 The transfer characteristic of the active antenna with high-pass filter at its input is given in Fig. 1. Curve I shows that signals at frequencies above 4 MEiz are passed un- hindered, whereas thosein the meditum-wave and long-wave bands are suppressed effec- tively (>35 4B). When interference is caused by a short-wave transmitter, a filter with @ characteristic like curve 2 can give somve re- lief from theinterference fromabout 4 MHz; signalsbelow roughly? MElzaresuppressed effectively. The citcuit diagram of the filter is given in Fig. 2. The filter proper is formed by C;, 1 and damping resistor Ry. The remainder of the circuit serves to operate relay Rey, which switches the filter on and otf ‘Terminals a and care connected, respect ively, to the anode and cathode of diode Dz ‘on the active antenna, Capacitor Cis then connected directly to the gate of Ty on the active antenna, TheremotecontrolcircuitisgiveninFig,3. Thisisa modified section of the powersupply of the active antenna—see Fig.3 in Ret. 1, which sinstallednear the inputof thereceiver, The two push-button switches enable the fil ter to be switched on and off without the need of an additional cable. FLEKTOR ELECTRON IRUARY 1992LIN SR Some {-PASS FILTER FOR ACTIV on. Charact ‘medium-wave and long-wave bands. Characteristic 2 Is necessary when inter signals up to 7 MHz must be suppressed. Either of the two curves can be obtained by the correct choice of certain components as indicated in the components list. Fig. 1. The output signal of the antenna amplifier with the high-pass filter switched istic 1 is correct for the suppression of interfering signals in the ing Normally, when thesupply isswitchedon, the filter is not actuated since both T; and T: arecutoff, WhenS; ispressed, thesupply volt- age is increased briefly (because resistor Ry in Fig, 34s short-circuited), so that a current flows into the base of T2 via Dy, The relay is then energized and the filter ig actuated. As soon as T> is switched on, T; conducts also and from then on maintains the base current toTp. Thatmeans thateven when isreleased Ty and thus the filter, remains on. When then Sri pressed, the supply voltage is inter- rupted, the relay is deenergized, both T; and ‘Ty are Cut off, and the filter is inactive Preset P; serves to set the change-over voltage of the relay to 12.1 V: this is exactly midway between thesupply voltageof10.7 V required by the antenna and the control volt- age of 135 V derived from the receiver. The filter is best built on the small PCB shown in Fig. 4. When this board has been completed, itis small enough to be installed in the ease housing the active antenna. As already stated, the filter is connected to the antenna via pins aand e. . Reference: Wideband active rod antenna’, Elektor Electronics, May 1991 PARTS LIST Resistors: 1 = 1 kQ (curve 1) or 390.2 (curve 2) R2=1ko (3-05 = 100 nF Inductors: L1 = 33 pH (curve 1) oF 3.3 pH (curve 2) ‘Semiconductors: D1 =zener 9:1 V, 400 mw D2=1Na148 Ti = BCS56B 72=BC546B ‘Miscellaneous: Rel =reed relay, 12 V, coil = 1 k Fig. 2. Circuit diagram of the high-pass filter. iSe ENR Fig. 3. Modiiod power supply ofthe ac- ive antenna, FLEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992, Fig. 4. Printed-circuit board for the high pass filter.CAPACITORS IN AF CIRCUITS It is well know that coupling capacitors in hi by H. Baggott audio circuits can adversely affect the tone quality of the circuits. Unfortunately, there are frequently good reasons that make their use unavoidable. But how do you decide which type to use in a high-quality amplifier? There are so many different types and makes on the market that this is not an easy decision. This article is intended to help ONVENTIONAL capacitors are made ‘of two thin metal foils separated by a thin insulator or dielectric, such as mica or a man-made fibre. This sandwich is rolled or folded into a compact size and covered with an insulating coating. A wire terminal is at- tached to each foil. To increase the capaci tance, the dielectric should be as thin as pos: sible. This can only be done at the expense of limiting the maximum voltage that can be applied before the insulator ruptures be: cause ofthe intense electric field. Anotherim- portant factor isthe resistivity of the dielee- tric. Thin, large-area shapes increase the leakage resistance between the foils and thus degrade the capacitor. In ceramic and plastie-film capacitors, the metal-film plates are deposited directly ‘on to the dielectric, Plastic dielectrics ha very high resistivity so that the leakage re. sistance is very small Electrolytic capacitors are made of an oxidized metal foil in a conducting paste (dry) or solution (wet). The thin oxide film is the dielectric between the metal foil and the paste or solution, Since the film is very thin, the capacitance is large. The metal foil is normally made of aluminium or tantalum. The capacitance, C, of a capacitor is de termined by the dimensions of the foils and the thickness and relative permittivity, €, of the insulator: Ald x 8.85 x 10-12 [farad], where A is the surface area ofthe foils in m? and d is the distance between the foils in m. The & of polyester is about 3, while that of tantalum oxide is around 11 ‘The thickness and type of material of the dielectric determine the breakdown volta ofthe capacitor: therefore, ahigh is larger than a low-voltage one. ‘Accapacitor isanon-linear electrical com- ponent, which makes it very useful in a num- ber of applications. Its specific characteris tic is the frequency-dependent reactance, Xc, which, for an ideal capacitor, is Xc=U2mfC {9} This would appear to indicate that the re actance characteristic of a capacitor isa con choosing a suitable capacitor. stantly dropping curve (on a logarithmic scale). This i, of course, not so, because the reactance would then really become 0 02. This is not the only non-ideal aspect of a capacitor. Apart from internal resistance (which is, of course, unwanted), a capacitor also has self-inductance, the magnitude of which is determined by its construction ‘manner in which the terminals are connected to the foils and the length and shape of the terminals rs Furthermore, no dielectric isa perfect sulator; therefore, leakage currents will occur and these play an increasing role as the volt: ‘age across the capacitor becomes higher. Figure J shows the equivalent circuit of a practical capacitor: C isthe real capacitance and this is shunted by the insulating resis tance, Ry of the dielectric. In series wit that combination is a resistance, Ry which rep- resents the minimum transfer resistance of the capacitor from one terminal to the other. In wi | 4 Xe Fig. 1. The equivalent circuit and vector diagram of a capacitor. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992serieswiththat network isthe self inductance, 1, ofthe capacitor. Furthermore, in parallel with Cand Kp isa series network consisting Of Rp, and Ciya, which represents the di- electric absorption ofthe capacitor. This isa less well-known property of capacitors. The dicleetic absorption, DA. is a charge dis- placement phenomenon inthe dielectric that {ausesasoft of memory lapse (adelayed tans- fer of acquired energy). Very few manufac- turers quote the DA in their datasheets, This phenomenon. which affeets the sound qual- ityothecircuit in which hecapscitor is used, willbe revered 0 later on in the article The impedance vs frequency character- istic obtained from measurements ona 2.2 uF capacitor. is shown in Fig. 2. Up to about 200 kHz the capacitor behaves almost ide- ally: the impedance diminishes linearly. At around 900 kHz, resonance is brought about by Cand L, (see Fig. 1). The minimum {impedance at that point is virtually equal to RR, Atfrequenciesabove? MHz. the capacitor behaves a a pure inductance (Z). Specifications Parameters to look for in manufacturers spec: fications and data sheets are given below. + The dissipation factor, co10 or tand. ind cates the losses Caused by Ry, and should thus have a low value (@ is the phase angle: dis the loss angle). A low value is particularly important ifthe capacitor is to be used in a cross-over filter. Note that tand is frequency-dependent and is ap- proximately equal t02/CR,, Some man- ufacturers give the value of R, separately for large-value eleetrolytic capacitors. + Only a few manufacturers give the value of the dielectric absorption (DA) and then only in the case of film capacitors, Here again, the lower this value, the bet- ter the capacitor. The DA of electrolytic ‘capucitorsis solarge thatitisnever quoted, +The misulation resistance. Ry, is normally of the order of hundreds of megohms and. seldom playsa role in audio applications. + The dissipation may be indicated by the power factor, which is equal 10 the ratio, RIZI=Sind). + The temperauure behaviour is usually given fora certain dielectric—see Fig. 3 + The capacitance and associated roler- Lance of mast capacitors, but not HF types, isnormally given ata frequency of 1 kHz. + The working voltage must, of course, be higher than the maximum voltage that will occur aeross the capacitor. Note that the ‘manufacturer may state thisasadiect volt- ‘age or as an alternating voltage. What kind of capacitor? Since this article deals with capacitors for audio applications, we will restrict us to the kinds of capacitor that are available in rela- tively high values: ceramic and mica eapac- itors are, therefore, not considered. That leaves film, electrolytic and paper capacitors Papercapacitorsarehardlyseenthese days. although they are found in Some equipment ELERTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 Fig. 2, Impedance vs frequency charac- teristic of a metal-plated polypropylene (MKP) filmeapacitor. Fig.3. Temperature-dependent behaviour of four different kinds of capacitor. Fig. 4. Setup for measuring the harmonic distortion of various capacitors. Fig. 5. Harmonie distortion vs frequency curves for tantalum (top), electrolytic and fromthe Soviet Union. Their quality isin gen- eral very good. Ofthe film capacitors, polyester(Mylat™) types form the largest and least expensive group. Their quality is fairly good and their dimensions are reasonable. Polycarbonate (MKC) capacitors have slightly better properties than polyestertypes. ‘They are the right choice for circuits where ‘2000 temperature behaviour is important. Polypropylene (MKP) types are better still, bt are generally rather larger than the previous two types. Polystyrene (MKS or Styroflex™) ca- pacitors are definitely the best for use in ‘audio circuits, but they are fairly large and ‘generally not availablein values above 0.5 LF Electrolytic capacitors are decidedly in- ferior to film capacitors. Their tolerance is fairly large and this makes them unsuitable fir use in filters. A special version of the traditional wet electrolytic capacitor is the bipolar type that isused primarily incross-over filters, although they can be useful in other audio eiret Finally, ranralum capacitors are not re- ally suitable for processing audio signals, because, owing their construction, they ex- hibit semiconductor effects. CAPACITORS IN AF CIRCUITS Measurement results A large number of measurements on a vati- ‘ely of capacitors from different manufactur ets showed the following results, ‘The measured value of capacitance devi- ated from the stated value by not more than 26 in the case of polypropylene capacitors: ‘not more than 4% in most ofthe tested poly terephthalate (MKT) types; and up to 20% in the case of electrolytic capacitors “The measured dissipation factor. tand, of all tested capacitors was low: ‘The thind harmonic distortion (THD) of capacitors used in a high-pass filter with & load resistance of 100, measured at 250 Hy. ‘was <0.001°% for all fil types, and varied between (.011%and0.025% with electrolytic types The dielectric absorption, DA, was mea sured by charging the capacitors for 5 min. utes at a direct voltage of 1.5 Y then short- circuiting them for 3 seconds and finally ‘measuring the residual voltage with a volt- meter with 50 MQ input impedance. This deviates somewhat from the MIL-C-19978- D test, but itis felt to give a beter insight into the relation between Cpa and Rpa. The DA forall MKP types was 0.014 or smaller; varied between 0,05% and 0.11% with MKT types: and varied between 0.63% and 3.3% with electrolytic types. Itis clear from these measurements that differences between capacitors withthe same dielectric are small. This has, no doubt, alot to do with the fact that capacitor manufac {utersbuy the foil froma small numberof pro- ducers, The tests threw up a few bad results even with the more expensive types. Inother words, even when you buy an expensive ca pacitor, youhave (very)small chance of get- king a rogue.The poor DA figures of electrolytic ca: pacitors are probably the reason that these ‘components often adversely affect the sound quality of audio circuits, which is not at all evident from their THD figures. Note that the DA and the THD have no direct rela- tionship, ‘The sef-inductance of the eapacitorstested sas negligibly small: <50 nH inthe case of F eapacitors. Modern production meth: ‘ods appear to result in minimal self-indu lance: most of this is formed by the termi nals (length and shape). ‘As an aside: when procuring the many capacitors forthe tests it was found that the larger values are normally stocked by loud- ig. 9. Capacitors are made of two ‘metal foils separated by a thin Insulator ordielectric, suchas mica ‘or a man-made fibre. In plastic film capacitors, the metal platesare deposited directly on to the di- ‘electric. This ‘sandwich’ Is rolled of folded into a compact size and covered withan insulating coating. ‘An axial wire lead Is attached to each foil. Shown here are the vari- ous production stages of a metal- plated polyterepht: capacitor. Electrolytic capacitors aremade of ‘an oxidized metal (usually aluminium. or tantalum) foil ina conducting paste(‘dry electrolytic’) orsolution (wet electrolytic’). The thin oxide film is the dielectric between the metal foilandthe solution or paste. ‘Since that film is very thin, the ca- pacitanceislarge: values trom \\F 10 10000).Fareavailable. Thelargest values can only be usedin circuits: where the applied voltage is low to avoid breakdown of the dielec- trie. speaker DIY dealers, but not by many gen- eral electronies retailers. In the audio circuit Where quality is paramount, leave out any thing from the signal path that is not strictly necessary is good advice. But, be careful. because poor components inthe feedback loop of anopampor power amplifierdo, ofcourse, also adversely affect the quality of the sig: nal. Furthermore, the power supply also plays role: itis advisable to shunt its large elec- trolytic capacitors with film types of not less than 0.47-1.0 UF to improve the circuit's performance at higher frequencies. Figure 4 shows an interesting setup for investigating the kinds of irregularity ca pacitors produce. It isa high-pass filter with ov Fig. 6. Possible configura tions of electrolytic capac- itors. Fig, 7. Harmonic distortion vs frequency characteristics of configurations in Fig. 6a (top); 6b, and 6c (bottom). Fig. 8. Harmonic distortion vs frequency characteristics of contigurationsinFig.6a (lop); 64, and 6e (bottom). ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992cut-off frequency at around 400 Hz. A rela tively low load is used to better show up any deficiencies (high loads improve the distor- tion factor). A frequency of a few hundred hertz is necessary to show how the capaci tor behaves below the cut-off point Figure 5 shows the harmonic distortion of three types of capacitor: MKT, wet elec Fig, 10. Distortion vs applied voltage char- acteristic of an electrolytic capacitor(top) and a metal-plated polypropylene type; the test frequency was 500 Hz. Fig. 11. Impedance vs frequency charac- teristic of an electrolytic capacitor shows that above 10 kHz the component does rio longer behave like a capacitor. Fig. 12. The impedance vs frequency ch: acteristic ofan electrolytic capacitor shunted bya film type is still far from ideal. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS BRUARY 1992 trolytie and tantalum, The tantalum is poor, the electrolytic is reasonable and the MKT produces virtually no distortion (ignore its distortion at very low frequencies because that is caused by the measurement setup). appears, therefore, that the distortion increases below the cutoff point of the RC ‘combination, that is, when the voltage across the capacitor increases: the same condition that a coupling capacitor experiences. Itcould be concluded that it would be advantageous to give the coupling capacitor a much larger value than necessary, that is, to choose a cut- off point of 1 Hz instead of 10 Hz. In prin- ciple, the area of distortion would then also. bbeshifted downwards and largely fall outside theaudiorange. A measurement witha 100 HF ‘capacitor in the setup of Fig. 4 showed that the distortion did, indeed, shift down rela- tive to that with a 2.2 MF capacitor, but it also showed that the distortion characteris- tic became much steeper upwards. In other ‘words, large-value electrolytic capacitors pro- duce a relatively much larger distortion than smaller ones. tis undoubtedly best to use MKP or MKT types for coupling capacitors. Unfortunately, that is not always possible owing to non-availability or lack of space, and electrolytic types must then be used. To. find out how to keep the distortion caused by these components as low as possible, ‘measurements were carried out on several configurations of electrolytic capacitors as shown in Fig. 6; the resulting distortions are shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8. The level of the input signal was 2 V ems. ‘The distortion of a single electrolytic ca pacitor Fig. 6 ai fairly highas seenin Fig. 7. The distortion of an anti-parallel network (Fig. 6b) is much smaller, but this configu- ration can handle alternating voltages of few voltsonly: moreover, the direct voltageacross it must be virtually zero. The series network (Fig. 6¢) is better stil: it behaves, in princi ple, as a bipolar electrolytic capacitor. in a practical circuit, there will be a di- rect potential across the coupling capacitor, which can have beneficial results. For in- stance, with a direct voltage of $V across a single electrolytic capacitor (Fig. 6d), the dis- Lortion, as shown in Fig. 8, is noticeably smaller, If the same vollage is applied to a series combination (Fig. 6c), a small im- provement in distortion compared with that of the setup in Fig. 6¢ results. This is easily realized with the aid of a resistor of, say, 100 kQ. to the negative supply line. Figure 10 shows the distortion measured on an electrolytic capacitor and an MKP type ata frequency of 500 Hz and input signals of 05-10 V rms. Itis clear that the distortion, ‘caused by the electrolytic type is voltage-de- pendent. When, therefore, large signal levels {asin valve amplifiers are processed, the qual- ity of the coupling capacitor is even more important than with small signals Inthese tests, only harmonicdistortion was ‘measured. In the case of electrolytic capaci- tors, this is caused primarily by odd har- monies, which are particularly offensive to ‘te human ear. There are, however, other types capactrors in APciRCUITS — BJ) of distortion, such as that caused by DA ‘This causes regulars in the dynaic be aviou of eagactor and also mules the sound trlow Requencce, Figure Il shows the impedance characteristic of a (pial 9 lecwoytic capacitor, which, compared sr he cure of ip. por AL2O Ki, theeurve la already well away fom the Wel Time wlle aloe tia frequency eimpedance Siske at © In preampliies this doesnot ner all that much because te terial Ing impedaneesthefe sre ef tbe order of dehas thousands of chs, la low-impedance Seni however does, 70. reein The proper functioning at higher frequencies, the electrolytic capacitor is often shunted by a film type. This is, however, effective only if the value of the film capacitor is not too small compared with that of the electrolytic type. Figure 12 shows what happens when a 2.2 pF electrolytic capacitor is shunted by a 0.22 pEMKT type: the characteristicimproves but only at fairly high frequencies. For good results, the value of the film capacitor must be not less than one third of that of the elec- trolytie type ‘The shunting has no effect on the DA, because the worst component in the parallel network determines the DA. Only when the values of the film capacitorandthe electrolytic capacitor are about the same is the DA of the combination reduced to about half that of the electrolytic capacitor. Figure I2.also shows thatshuncingtheelec- trolyticcapacitors na powersupply with film types makes real sense. The electrolytic ca pacitorsalonehardly decouple the supply lines at higher frequencies, whereas the film ca~ pacitors ensure that signals up to a few MHz are suppressed effectively so that they can= ‘not cause interference in the audio circuits. .AUDIO/VIDEO SWITCHING UNIT As more and more audiovisual equipment is cheerfully stacked up in your living room, connecting it all is bound to become a problem sooner or later. What do we want? A number of audio and video signals have to switched between we want the pictures produced by the ferent equipment: for instance, i-fi video recorder to be visible on two TV sets at the same time, while the recorder should still allow us to choose between recording TV sound or a signal from ‘the stereo’. All this is possible with the electronic switch discussed here, which can be given as many inputs as you think necessary. ONE are the days when every home had one TV set and one radio, and many of you will have grown accustomed to the presence ofa stereo set, a video recorder, several TV sets, a camcorders, a portable CD player, or a DAT recorder in the living room and elsewhere in the home. Unfortunately, linking all this wonderful equipment is never easy, since low-frequency (audio) as well as high-frequency (video) signals have by T. Giffard to be switched and routed without losses and cross-talk Apparently, a kind of ‘switehbox’ is in order. ‘The audio/video switching unit de- scribed in this article has the function of a versatile signal router that allows two or more devices to be connected to a single video input on a TV set or a video monitor. ‘This feature is particularly useful with older TV sets, Switching and routeing video signals is not as easy as audio signals because the sig nal bandwidth is much greater (approx. {6 MHz instead of 20 kHz). Since an ordinary rolary switch isnot suitable for this function, Philips Components have developed an in- tegrated circuit capable of switching two (stereo) audio and two video signals simul taneously, and electronically. Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of this IC, the TDAS440, LECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 EKTORwhich we introducedin Ref. 1. Although this IC has been designed primarily for connec- tion tan FC bus, itcan also be controlled by ordinary logic levels. This is made possible by the double function of the ‘selec’ inputs ‘on the TDAS440, $0, ST and $2. Normally these three inputs are used to locate the ICat ‘one of seven possible addresses in an FC sys- tem, allowing up to seven TDASi40s to be connected in parallel toan Cus. However, when all three ‘select’ inputs are made hi simultaneously, the IC isswitched tonon-I'C mode, in which it can be controlled with or- dlinary logic signals. The input channel sel tions then effected by appropriate control of | the FC bus inputs, SCL and SDA. In non-'C mode, the SDA input may be usedl to switch between audio/video source ‘I’ (SDA=+12 V) or audio/video source “2” (SDA=0 V). The SCL input is used to set the {gain of the video amplifier. The gain is 2 ‘when SCL=+12 V, or unity when SCL=0 V. When a number of TDAS440s are connected in parallel, the OFF input may be used to switch off ‘unused’ ICs, The TDASMO is ac- tuated by applying a logic low level to the OFF input. A high level disables the IC, when all outputs are switched to high-im- pedance. The switchbox With flexibility in mind, the circuit of the audio/video switch (and. the associated printed circuit board) isdesigned such that it canbe controlled via push-buttonsas wellas via the FC bus. Furthermore, the switching unit has a modular structure, which enables inputs tobe added as necessary. In practice, this means that a fair number of video sourees (with accompanying audio signals) can be linked to a SCART connector on, say, a TVset. Figure 2 shows the circuit diagram of the switching unit, which contains two identical modules. The circuit description below refers to the upper module in Fig, 2. Fach modulehas two video inputs and two stereo audio inputs. The video and audio sources connected to these inputs can be switched on to the common outputs. The input and out- putimpedance ofthe video channelsis set to about 75.2 with the aid of terminating resis tors. ‘Thanks to the high-impedance off mode of the TDABOs, the outputs of the modules can be connected in parallel without prob- lems, This makes it possible to use any num- ber of modules together, so that it should always be possible to realize the required number of inputs. Note, however, that the capacity of the power supply may be limi ting factor. The supply as drawn allows up to 8 modules (16 video inputs) to be used simultaneously. Although there exist 1.5-A versions of the 7812. voltage regulator (7812CV and others) that would allow up to 12 medules to be powered, the resultant power dissipation may well cause overheat- ing of the regulator as the heat-sink is rela- tively smal Retuming to the circuit diageam, it will ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 : eeeaieemeenenetnensemetiiemmenciatt eee eee ‘Audio amplification (1 kH: MAIN SPECIFICATIONS (AUDIO CHANNELS) Harmonic distortion (20 Hz to 20 kHz): <0.008% Dynamic IM distortion (square wave 3.15 kHz; sine wave 15 kHz: <0.002% ‘Audio channel separation: 70.48 ‘Audio crosstalk (1 - 2) -80 dB Audiolvideo crosstalk suppressior 290 dB ‘Amplitude error (20 Hz to 20 kHz): +0/-0.2 8 ‘Specifications measured at an audio bandwidth of 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and a AUDIO/VIDEO SWITCHING UNIT ‘source impedance of 600 2. on ees . mache fe Wes wean he ce “eh TS ie i ters it nae a 910130-12 Fig. 1. Block diagram af the TDAB#40. benoted that a fair number of componentsis required to perform a basically simple func: tion. This is caused partly by the need of cor- eet termination on all video inputs. Also, two bistables are called for to be able to use the TDAS440 in non-FC mode. The IC is switched to non-FC mode by setting jumpers JP2JP5_ to the positions shown in the circuit diagram. Jumper JPL is set to the position corresponding to the re- ‘quired gain of the video amplifier. When one of the Keys is pressed (on one of the modules shown in the circuit diagram. for any ather connected, identical, module),g RADIO AND TELEVISION Fig. 2 Cireuit i sm of the audio/video switching unit. COMPONENTS LIST 16:33 RiZA13:RO8 RIT 4 Koo 4 100 AI4.F1S.RO4)R9S 1 an Ri 10 100402 u7-R0; R22; R27;F29.R2 8 470K RS.A7ROR 1: Rae RA0.RAZ Aas Copacitors: 10 nF c1oc1z;c14; 618:028:635, (c45;047.c49,051 7. 470F coramic C1:05-08.022,099| 15 100nF cascir.cie.ce4, Ca5;C28-C93, Ca6.037.ca3.c44 8 4700F CaC1.019.C15, Gae.ca8:cs0,082 2 Wu 16V radial cas.ca8 4 10uF 16 c19.c20;cat.c42 1 a7yF sev 2 2 10QUF 1eVradial © Ca7-Ca4 2 220uF 25 canicao 1. 1000KF 25 V ca ‘Semiconductors: 1. 801500 st 4 LED high eticiency 07-10 11 1Net48 Dr-beDIt-DI5 1 7812 et 2 ToAss40 exes 1 Tuer ice 2 4018 ic3:10 Miscellaneous: 8 Sway pinheader — JP1JPSJP8UPIO 2 way pinhesder — JP2PO 18 phono (RCA) socket KI-K18, 4 SPST push ution S1-S4 1. Printed circuit board 910190 the common reset line,‘ is actuated via a discrete OR gate, D¥D+-Rav. All bistables connected to the reset line are cleared, sothat their Q outputs go high. Another thing hap~ pensin the module that contains the pressed Key: when key Si or 2s pressed, the associ- ated bistable, Cay, receives a set pulse in ad dition to the reset pulse. This set pulse is ‘mulch longer than the (common) resot pulse, 0 that the bistable will eventually be set. Since the Q output of this bistable is con nected to the OFF iaput of ICs, the electronic switch is actuated. This means that only the TDABLD on the module that contains the pressed key is enabled. All TDASHOs a Gisabled at power on, 50 that none of the video sources is connected to the output of the circuit Depending on whether Si_or Se is pressed, [Css isset or reset respectively. Th bistable determines whether audio/video source I’ or 2 is connected to the output. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992escent 4 ie | Fig. 4, Wiring dlagram fora iwormodule version of the audicivideo switching unit. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992Fig. 5. ate PCBs. The PCB shown in Fig. 3allow you to build two modules, which share a com- ‘mon power supply and a reset interface Construction To prevent cross-talk between channels, the circuit is best built on the printed circuit board of which the layout is shown in Fig. 3 Before this PCB is populated, it must be cut Prototype of the A/V switching unit built into a Type LC850 enclosure from Telet. into three to separate the two modules and a section that contains opamp ICz and the ‘common power supply. When more than ‘two modules are used (four inputs), only the module sections of the PCB are used. The supply board is left over, and put aside for dther purposes as it is fairly universal Having constructed the three PCBs in ac- cordance with the component overlay and the components list, they are interconnected avprowvinro swrremnc utr BE as shown in the wiring diagram, Fig. 4 ‘The unit is given a neat appearance by ‘using push-buttons with an integral LED (a series of ITT-Schadow ‘Digitast’ keys is available with this feature). These push-but- tons may be mounted on to a small piece of ‘veroboard or stripboard to create a compact controls panel that shows at a glance which ‘video source is connected to the output. As shown in Fig, 5, the prototype is a -module version built intoa metal enclosure. This unit has an internal mains power supply, and was fitted with a front panel to the layout given in Fig. 6 : Reference: 1. “8-channel audio/video switch”. Elektor Electronics March 1991. onli) o;o0 Fig. 6. Suggested front panel layout. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992Eg 12C INTERFACE FOR PCs The I7C interface (Inter-IC Communication) is a Philips invention that has been in use for years to enable ICs to communicate with each other in complex electronic equipment such as radios, video recorders and television sets. The insertion card we present here puts your PC in control of about ten I7C compatible ICs. by J. Ruffel T isa simple but well known fact that the requirement for external pin connections isa limiting factor as regards the complexity of integrated circuits. Also, the more pins on an IC, the more expensive the device becomes to package and mount ona printed circuit board, Further, alargenumber of con- nections is inevitably coupled to a higher risk of malfunctions. No wonder IC manu fiacturers have sought alternative ways 10 allow complex ICs to communicate with as fow as possible interconnections. Thel'C busdesigned by Philipsissuchan alternative:itallows ICs to exchange data via two wires. This type of (serial) communica- tion is particularly suited to relatively slow data transfer, and the protocol certainly does not allow, say, a computer RAM card to be implemented with FC devices. By contrast, the FC bus and protocol are perfect for, say, anI/Oport ora real-time clock ina video re corder. The FC card discussed here allows an MS-DOS compatible PC to communicate With TC ICs in external application circuits. As such, the card is for all of you who have noticed the large potential of FC ICs (they are not generally expensive because of mass Production), but have so far lacked the means to set up a contro link to them. Hav ing built the TC interface, programming lan uages such as C, Pascal or assembler may be used to communicate with the FC ICs as ifthey were ‘external devices’ ?C, a powerful standard ‘The FC bus is a system bus based on three signals: SDA (system data), SCL. (system clock) and ground. The SDA and SCL lines ROJECT are of the open-drain type, and must be tied tothe positive supply line via an external re- sistor to create a bus structure that allows multiple inputs and outputs to be connected. in parallel Figure 1 shows the basic electrical con- figuration, The two communication lines are logic high when they are inactive, The num ber of ICs connected to the bus is, in prin- ciple, unlimited. Note, however, that the lines’ do have a maximum specification of 400 pF in respect ofthe load capacitance. The ‘maximum data rate that can be achieved on the FC bus is about 100 KBit/s. The definitions used in relation to FC bus functions are basically as follows: Master: this is the IC that determines the tim- ing and the direction of a data transfer. This IC is the only one on the FC bus to supply clock pulses on the SCL line. When multiple master devices are connected to a single FC bus, this set-up is called a multi-master sys- tem, Slave: this is any IC connected to the FC bus thats not capable of generating clock pulses. Slave ICs receive commands and clock sig- nals froma master. Bus free: the bus is free when SDA and SCL are both logic high. A master can access the ‘bus only when this is free. Start: master occupies the bus by genera ting a start condition, which means that SDA is made low while SCL remains high Stop: a master can free the bus again by ‘generating a stop condition, which means that SDA is made high while SCL is high. Data valid: the data on the SDA line rmust be c-Bus gnotay 1-11 Fig. 1. The °C bus js basically a 2-wire serial communication system based on open ‘outputs in connected devices, series resistors (Rs) and pull-up resistors (Fp). ELEKTOR E TRONICS FEBRUARY 1992stable while SCL is high. This renders the start and stop canditions unique. Data format: each ‘chunk’ of information sent via the FC bus consist of eight data bits (one byte). Each byte is followed by a ninth clock pulse, during which the receiving IC (a ‘master ora slave) is to generate an acknow- ledge (ACK) pulse. This is lone by making, the SDA line low during the ninth clock pulse ICaddress:cach IC thats suitable for use on the FC bus has its own, unique, address, ‘whichisdetermined by the manufacturer. In general, this address is ‘burned into the IC, although there are also [Cs that allow a part of the addeess to be set externally. This op- tion allows a number of ICS of the same type tobeconnected toasinglebus. Address Os the’ general calladdress’ to whichall ICson thebus respond. RAW bit: every IC has a 7-bit address. The eighth bit (USB) that is sent dusing the ad dressing operation, i the R/W (read/write) bit. rthisbitis'T",a master device reads data from a slave device. When itis 0, master vice writes data toa slave device Bus protocol [A protocol has been drawn up to initiate the communication between two TCs on the PC bus. This protocolisbriefly described below. ‘Assoon as the buss free, a master can oc- cupy itby generating a start condition. The first byte transmitted ater the startcondition contains the 7-bit IC address and the R/W bit. If the addressed IC is present (ie. con- nected tothe bus) it responds by returning an ACK pulse. After that, the data exchange When the R/W pulse was’! previously, the master sends data tothe slave until it no longer receives ACK pulses, or until all data has been transmitted When the R/W pulse was‘ previously, the master generates clock pulses, during which theslave isallowed tasend data, After every received byte, the master (which is a receiving device at this stage) generates an ACK pulse. This continues until the master no longer supplies ACK pulses The master ean free the bus again by generating a stop condition. IF it wants to Continue communicating, itis possible that the master generates a new start condition instead of a stop condition. This new start condition is called a repeated start, and can be used to address adfferentIC, or maketthe R/W bit toggle. Figure 2 shows the start and stop conditions in a timing diagram. Philips Components and a number of other ‘manufacturers havea wide range of FCcom- patible ICs available, including, RAMs, EE- PROMSs, microcontrollers, I/O ports, DTMF encoders, infra-red. transmitters and. re- ceivers, ADC and DACS, and a real-time clock with calendar (for an overview, sce Ref. 1), The range of FC devices is continu ously expanded with new ICs “The FCDS564 isan FC bus controller spe cifically develope to simplify thecommuni- ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 Fig. 2 ‘Signal levels on the SDA and SCL lines mark start and stop conditions. Fig. 3. The PCDBSG8 FC controller ea q shown. cation with a parallel port. This IC, which is at the heart of the present interface, arranges all control actions required on the bus, and thus allows ready communication between an I/O port of a PC, and FC devices. The PCD8584 IC controller ‘The PCDSSS4 is a powerful, universal, TC buscontraller that forms the link between an S-bit parallel port of a microcontroller oF microprocessor, and the serial FC bus. The IC supports reading and writing of bytes via juite complex IC — here, the block diagram is the PC bus, and is remarkably simple to im- plement in systems based ona different pro- Cessor types, such as the 8048/8051 controllers, 80xx processors, and the 68000. The block diagram of the PCD8584, Fig. 3, shows a number of functional blocks: Bus buffer. Ths is the circuit between the computer bus and the shift register in the PCDS58 S0/, own address. na multi-master system this register contains the address to which the controller responds. This address may rot be 00" unless the controller isto work inEo COMPUTERS AND MICROPROCESSORS: The information below is supplementary to that contained in the PCD8S84 data- sheet, and aimed at those of you who Intend to work on the device driver. Initialization ‘Afier the circuit has been reset, the con- troller must be set to the correct mode {80x oF 68000). The default mode is 80xx ‘compatible. On detecting a high-to-low transition at the WR input, while CS is high, the PCD8584 switches 10 68000 mode. Next, a value other than 0 must be But into register SO’. Programming a 0 esulis in the IC switching to ‘passive ‘monitor mode’ in which data on the 1°C bus is indiscriminately put into the read After the mode selection, the internal prescaler is programmed via register S2. This is done with the aid of bits S20 to ‘$24. Table 1 shows the function of the bits in relation to the available clock fr quencies. The I°C interface card uses two a dresses in the 1/0 range of the PC. All registers contained in the controller can bbe accessed via these two addresses. First, bits E80, ES1 and ES2 in the "St: control” register’ must. be pro- ‘grammed to give the desired settings of the FC bus controller. The most useful ‘settings ere indicated with asterisks in Table 2. Transmitting data Botore data gan be sent vi this must be inialzed and ha sponding "0.8 stat consltion. BUS tion 1s achieved by making Dit “The interface can be switched ot again by making this bt “0 again. The Serial channel may be switched ff only aiter a siop condtion hes been gener- ated his rule snot observed, the con- froler loses track of the bus operations, fndcan be synchronized ony by aha Before a start condition is generated, the controler finds uti the Bus Is free by checking i BB is "t”. The start condition proper snot generated until the STA bitin {he contol register Is set. Once this is $0, fan adaress is sont, complete with a FW bi. The oyte transmitted a this stage must be contained in register SO when the STA Bite set Aller tranomiting the device ad- dress, the data exchange fs ntiated ‘repeated stant condition is generated in 8 sight aiferon’ manner than a normal Start condition. After the bus has been accupied, setting the STA bithesro effect Asian condition is generated, and deta is transmitted from S0, only aller datas sent to $0. A stop condition is necessary to mark the end of @ transmission, This Is Achieved by setting the STO bit, and writ ing.a value to $0, The acual value written {0.80 8 ielevant. since is ignored ‘Th transter of daia may commence ater tho start condition has been set up, and the address, complete with a R/W bit, has been sont. The moment the transmission Starts, the PIN (pending inverupt) its Sot, This bit is reset automaticaly at the tnd ofthe transmission. Provided the ENI {enable interrupt) bithad been made "by the user the INT output is tiggered. The Table 1. ‘SCL frequency Table 2. Control/Status register $1 : serial interface OFF Est Es2 serial interface ON Es1 Interface card described here doesnot use the interrupt pulse. Instead, the control software ‘polls’ the PIN bit. Every polling action requires waiting for the PIN bit to overt to ‘0’ again. ‘The state of the LAB (last received bit) Indicates whether or not a salve has re- turned an acknowledge condition to indi- cate correct reception of the data. As soon a5 PIN is ‘0” again, the data to be trans- mitted may be put into registor SO. Next, PIN becomes ‘1’ again, the data is trans: mitted, and PIN becomes ‘0’. The LAB ‘again indicates that an acknowledge has been generated, which means the 4 hhas arrived securely at the slave address. ‘This sequence is repeated as long as the master Sends data, The end of the se- ‘quence may be marked by a stop condition to indicate that the bus Is free, and ac- Cessible to other devices. Since the end of the stop condition can not be detected by Jooking atthe PIN bit, the software must wait until BB reverts "1". When receiving data, the master must {generate an acknowledge condition (i sel the ACK bit) after every received byte. ‘The addressing of the master is similar to the transmitting of data. After addressing, IACK PCD8584 I7C CONTROLLER PCD85E4 SCL and clock frequency selection Internal clock frequency feux S22 (MHz) Function RW St: CONTROL IW SO: (own address) RW 83 [interrupt vector) RW 82 (clock register) Funetion W St: CONTROL St: STATUS RW S0 (data) AW 2 (interrupt vector) | R19 (interrupt vector ACK yee) [long-distance mode the PIN bit is 0", so that the IC functions mastet/receiver. The controller keeps, ‘SCL line low until the PIN bit is set by ‘read operation to register SO. This is an Indication for the slave/transmitter that the master is ready to receive data. This means that SO must be read once befor the reception of data can commence. The value read from SO to initiate reception has no significance. The IC subsequently ‘awaits data, generates an acknowledge, fand recets the PIN bit. After that, the data may be read from register SO, which resets PIN, and prepares the IC for reception of the next byte. ‘Once the desired data has been received, the ACK bit must be reset before SO can be read. The slave will send one more byte, of which the reception is not acknow- ledged by the master. After that, the com- munication may be ended with the aid of a slop condition. The consequence of this protocol is that the siave will transmit at least one byte too many. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992PC INTERFACE FOR PCS 1 4 foaeKi 28 4 | oacK 1o2 = 7aHeT00 vcs = 7ancTi07 Fig. its (mostly passive) ‘monitor mode’. On the interface card, this register is of no import- ‘ancebecause the PCDS584is the only master deviceon the FC bus, and thus automatically assumes the function of co-ordinating all bus actions, S1, controlistatus register. This register is available double. It is addressed when pin A0 is high. All other registers are ad- dressed when pin AQ is low. The selection of the latter depends on bits ESO, BS1 and B52 in the register ‘SI: controY’. The selection be- tween control and status register is effected with the aid of the ES0 bit: as long as this is “0,, only the control register is accessible for reading from or writing to. Also, the serial interface is switched off. When ESO is ‘I’, ‘SI: control is written to, ‘SI: status’ is read. from, and the serial interface is actuated. The ELEKTOR EL “TRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 Circul iagram of the FC Interface for Pos. remaining bits are not involved until they ace significant forthe control software 52, clock register. The clock pulses on the SCL line are derived from the signal at the CLK input. Bits $20 and $21 in register S2 allow one of four bus clock feequencies (SCL) to be selected: 1.5 kHz, 11 KHz, 45 kHz or 0 kEYz, The bits 522,523 and S24 are used to select the frequency at the clock input ofthe IC: 3 MHz, 443 MHz, 6 MHz, 8 Milz or 12MHz The latter isthe default after a reset 53, interrupt vector. When the controller is tse! on interrupt basis, it is capable of put- ting an interrupt vector on the PC bus. This happens when input TACK is made low. Since this function isnot used on the PC in- terface card, S3hasno function inthe present application, Around the controller In addition to the PCDASS4, three other IC and a handful of passive components are re Ghired to build the PC interface (se the ct cuit diagram in Fig. 4), CiretitsTCt and 1C24 form the address decoder, which compares the address.on the PC bus with that set on switch block 2 ‘When the two addresses match, the CS line to the PCDS584 is pulled low, 50 that a read or write command in the I/O range fins its ‘way to the FC controller. Address signal AO {goes directy to the IC, and needs no futher treatment, Since in this case the PC bus is loaded with only one IC input, additional butfering is not required. The [ORD and TOWRlines are conmected directly tothe Ri and WR inputs ofthe IC. The interrupt outORS ii a rm nf tesa Fig. 5: ppt signal is inverted and buttered by IC Pull-up resistor Rr and connector Ki allow the (open drain) INT outputs of further FC ICs to be taken up into an interrupt chain withan OR function. A jumper is used to se lect the interrupt line in the PC. The jumper is not fitted unless interrupts are required (Ghe control software described further on dloes not use interrupts generated by the in- terface) ‘The output of gate IC24is made short- Fig. 5. Circuit in Fig. 2 built on PCB in Fig. 6. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 Fig. 6. PCB layout for circuit in Fig. 2 incl. filter).SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY GREATER CAPACITY IN SUBMARINE OPTICAL CABLES XPERIMENTS undertaken by British Telecom (BT) research engineers por- tend a dramatic increase in the communi- cations carrying capacity of optical telephone links and a means of checking the viability ‘of an optical fibre link in service without di rupting communications. ‘There are two separate studies. The first is concerned with increasing to 2.4 Gbit s-! the capacity of a single fibre in the exist submarine fibre optic cable link, currently operating over 132 km (80 miles) between the United Kingdom and Guernsey in the Channel Island. The second is a method of detecting faults on the link without inter- rupting its data transmission, When optical fibres were introduced in the 1970s, they promised a means of trans- mitting data at a high rate of Gbit s-! over many kilometres of cable with minimal at- dreams of an ultimate methoxt of transmission were, tosome extent, dashed by the discovery that, although there was small but significant loss of signal over {ens of kilometres, the main enemy of ef- fective high-speed transmission was pulse broadening. This can be attributed mathematically lo group velocity dispersion, which is the change in pulse propagation velocity with ‘change in light frequency. The broadening is proportional tothe length of fibre traversed, so eventually a maximum cable length is reached where the pulse width is sufficient for pulses to overlap, and effective com- munications ceases, Learning from water Attempts to reduce this effect by tuning the laser light source (nominally 1.30 jum) to the wavelength at which the group velocity dispersion reaches a minimum (1,55 yim for standard fibre) were not particularly fective, However, other phenomena wereev- ident in fibre technology that could be ex- ploited to provide a solution. These in- cluded the slight non-linearity of the refractive index, n, and the soliton effect. This was firstrecorded about century agoby acleric watching the passage of barges along a canal He noticed that at timesa single wave was generated that maintained its shape and ve Ta stable particle tke soltary wave state that © a solution of certain equations for propagation in Plasmas. ud mechani, laser, sobd-sate physics and elementary-parile physics. Editor by Bill Presdee, BSe, CEng, MIEE locity forseveral kilometres along the canal, tnd one can visualize him galloping along the towpath making his observations. The supporters of the general system theory. who subscribe to the portability of the cle- ments of systems between disciplines, will be pleased to know that this effect occurs also in fibre optics. Tests in progress on the submarine opti- cal link between the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands. ‘The effect of the non-linearity in the re fractive index can be expressed as the dif ference between its nominal value and that at an arbitrary low intensity that is propos tional to the light intensity. The introduc- tion of light power measured in watts into a single mode fibre of area, say, 10-6 em, represenls a translation to an intensity of MW mim The effect of this non-linearity can be allowed to build up over hundreds ‘or even thousands of metres of fibre length. Dispersion effect ‘The non-linearity leads to an effect known as self-phase modulation in which, owing to phase and frequency shift (or chirp) as the pulse traverses the fibre, the frequen: cies in the leading half of the pulse are low- ered, while those in the trailing half are raised. The effect of dispersion is to ad- vance the trailing half of the pulse while retarding the leading half and, provided the chirpis large enough, dispersion—formerly the pulse broadener—teads to pulse nar- The considerations necessary in formu- lating a soliton pulse for communications in optical fibresare vested in complex math- ematies. Basically, however, the pulse-broad- ening etfects of dispersion have to be bal anced exactly by the pulse-narrowing effects ‘of non-linearity Ofcourse, apart from arriving atthe right formulation for development of a high-ea- pacity optical communications system, it Is necessary to have an advanced technol- with which to implement it, and the perimental work to prove its efficacy. ‘The future traffie requirement of unre- peatered submarine systems, most of which ‘currently operate at below 140 Mbit s-1, is likely tobeashighas 2.4 Gbits-. Accordingly BT engineers have mounted aseries of field trials to demonstrate that the technology developed by them can meet this require: ‘ment and that the British mainland can be linked to its off-shore islands and its conti- rental neighbours with very high caps repeaterless optical cables. Successful demonstration The UK-CI7 cable runni Fleming in southwestern Eng Peter Port in Guernsey, which is 132 km. (80 miles) long and has been in operation at 140 Mbit s-l since early 1989, was se- lected for this purpose. An initial three-day trial witha frequency shift keying (FSK) sys- tem demonstrated successfully thatthe sys- tem capacity could be increased eight-fold to 1.2 Mbit s-? with the use of commer- cially available components giving a 2 dB ‘operating margin. The trials were continued to investigate the feasibility of a further in: crease incable capacity to2488Gbits-! and a greater operating margin. In direct intensity modulated systems, ‘wavelength chirping of the distributed feed: back (DFB) laser diode produces an unac- pplable dispersion penalty, The FSK sys- tem was used to give a narrow width spec~ tral source in preference to. phase shift key- ing (PSK) system, which would be more complex, or an external modulation sys- tem, which would introduce high coupling losses and need a high electrical drive sig nal. An FSK direct detection system ean be implemented economically, reduce the ef- foct of fibre dispersion and permit a high ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992launch power with only a small electrical signal Fibre amplifier FSK modulation, with the mark and space separated by a few GHz, was applied to a commercial DFB laser with an integral op- tical isolator. The FSK signal was demod- ulated at the transmitter with the aid of an ‘optical self-homodyne technique via fibre based Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Care twas taken to minimize thermal drift and to keep the laser centre frequency and the in- terferometer aligned. To provide sufficient optical power at the receiver, an erbiun npli fier was pumped with hi igh-power multi-quantum well semiconductor laser to boost the transmitted signal level. Two complete transmitters and avalanche pho: GREATER CAPACITY IN SUBMARINE OPTICAL CABLES todiode (APD) receivers were used to allow simultaneous two-way transmission of pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) test ‘across the submerged cable. As an additional demonstration, a sur face-acoustic wave electronic data regen: erator was installed at the Guernsey termi- nal to loop the received data back to the main- land. At 2.488 Gbit s-! (equivalent to 32 broadcast television channels or 35.000 tele phone calls), the demonstration showed the feasibility of upgrading the capacity of ex- isting submarine links, Fault location Optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) is a well-established diagnostic method of evaluating various features of an optical cable and locating discontinuities and junctions such as breaks and splices. ‘The UK-CL7 cable was again used as a test-bed to explore the possibility of con: ducting such OTDR tests without removal of traflic from the line and consequent Joss of revenue. The OTDR test unit, operating at 1514 nm, and 1546 nm DEB laser, mod- ulated with S65 Mbit s-! PRBS data, were ‘coupled to the system fibre via a nominally ‘50:50 passive fibre coupler, At the OTDR end and the APD receiver end, 3-nim full-width half-maximum filters mounted in low back-reflection fibre optic beam expanders were used {0 prevent re flections back into the DFB laser. The field rials showed that the data chan- nel does not affect the OTDR measure- ments. Conversely, bil error rate measure ments conducted with and without the OTDR operating showed that it did not degrade the performance of the 565 Mbit s-! data channel. . THE LIVING COMPUTER ANY people have the false idea that {computers have only come into being in the world of today. However, they have ays been here, even before the dawn of the history of mankind: living congputers Living computers exist in many different forms, as do non-fiving (electronic and elec- tromechanical) ones designed by them. Toun- derstand this ull. itis necessary to know what is contained in a computer so that it ean per- form a variety of tasks. The first essential is the gathering of in formation: the inputs of the computer. At this stage, these are said to be in analogue form: sound and vision in the case of ahurman observer Atthenext stage, the inputsare usually con- verted into digital form and stored in memo- ries, of which there are usually more than fone, In the case ofthe living memories in the hhuman brain, there are two: long. shortterm. ‘Memories are necessary because time is iavolved:the time when information isreceived anid the time when itis processed are not nec- essarilythesame. The timescale inacomputer and that in the outside world are not usually the same, The non-living computer has a clock to control its speed of operation and this gives ita great advantage aver the living ‘computer: in it, the digital units of inforn tion form a time-space pattern that is unique for every discrete item of information Theclock produces pulses ofenergy at pre- cisely regular intervals. Each computer has a specific clock-rate: in the human brain this is about 16 pulses per second. An electronic computer ean have a clock-rate a million or more times faster and can, therefore (in the: cory) perform a task in seconds that would take the hamanbrainas many weeks. However, the human brain has a lithe understood at rm and. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 by C.C. Whitehead tribute not possessed by the non-living com- puter: emotion®. which, among other func- tions seems capable of greatly increasing the clock-rate when an important situation arises so that during the emergency time seems to pass more slowly ‘What is perceivedinthe outside world plus the information already in the memories, all ® Inour opinion, a distinction should be made be- tween bvainand min,he Brain beng theharcware and the mind’ the software; emotion isnot a ma iestation ofthe brain ut the mind, Editor al form, is passed 10 the tunit in the computer, the /ogie unit, where it 1s processed into a form that is assumed to bbe aeceptable to the individual or organiza tion interestedin the output(s) ofthe computer. Aterithas been processed, the information. still in digital form, is passed to the output unit where itis reconverted into the form re quired atthe outputs, which isusually analogue. ‘Another feature that is common to all ‘computersis that they have tobe programmed, that is, made to be able to deal with the in: formation ina manner that is acceptable to the individual or organization using the e puter. Programming in the kinds of computer ‘with which we are dealing in this paper is al- ‘ways carried out by a human being. In the cease of non-living computers, this is done by (replaceable) software; in living computers, as stated in an catlier article (Ref, 1), itis done by the process called education That body of great educators, the Jesuits knew all about this and claimed that the es- sential elements of programming were im- parted during the first seven years of the in- dividual's (conscious) life. Even today, the ‘government in the UK lays great stress on the importance of the frst seven years in school {ll ofthis raises interesting philosophical ‘questions, For instance, what is the nature of time, which in the human consciousness is associated with the velocity of propagation of electromagnetic radiation? Who or what programmes the computer in the case of li ing creatures other than human beings? Most religions have an answer to this: God. That is aa perfectly reasonable concept with which however, noteverybody isinagreement, I Reference I. “A world of computers” by C.C. Whitehead, Elektor Electronies, December 1991PWM temperature controller RECISION temperature control is re- ‘quired from egg incubators to large in- {dustrial furnaces. Ithe temperature controller ‘malfunctions, the product gets damaged. In this article a precise, proportional tempera ture controller with built-in safety limitisdis- cussed. The application of the controller is, left to the reader's imagination, Temperature control systems Basically, there ae three different ways of controlling temperature. + Onoff control. This is the simplest way to control temperature. When the tem- perature of the medium 10 be heated is below the set point, the heating element is switched ow and turned oFF when the temperature goes above the set point. The ‘medium temperature fluctuates from the set point by 5-10 °C. Figure 1a shows the control signal and the temperature rise. Typical applications are for eooking oven, iaboratory hardening processes and sealing equipment. + Proportional control, With this, theheater isswitched ow and oFFina seriesof pulses, wot signals, supplying lessheat tothe sys- tem as it approaches the set temperature. ‘The actual temperature varies by I-4 °C fromthe setpointas shownin Fig. 1b. This tolerance is called offset or droop. Typical applicationsinclude ovens, annealing pro- cesses and seal processing packing ma- chinery. + Proportional integral control. This is similar to proportional contol, but intro- duces an integral control action that re- duces the offset level as shown in Fig. le. ‘Theactual temperature differs rom the set point by 0.5-3 °C. This type of (expens- ive) control is used for sensitive labora- tory temperature-humidity ovens and for industrial injection machinery. Temperature to voltage ‘One practical way of converting tempera- ture to voltage is the use of8 thermistors. A. thermistor is made of a metal alloy whose resistance varies inversely with tempera- ture, that is, it has a negative temperature coefficient (WFC). Thermistors are available by K.A. Nigim, B.Sc., Ph.D., MIEEE in different ranges (100 0 to 500 KO) ‘When athermistorisconfigured ina mea- suring bridge, such as a Wheatstone bridge, the ambient temperature can be sensed and Fig. 1b. Proportional control. measured as a differential voltage across the bridgeterminals. In practice, aresistorofsuit- able value is connected across the thermis- tor to improve linearity of the temperature voltage gradient. ‘A more accurate linear temperature sen- sor is the LM335Z or LM35, whose output 4s directly proportional to the absolute tem- perature and provides an output signal of 1O:mV K-! To limit self-heating in temperature sen- sors, the current flowing into the sensor should be restricted to a value of I-S mA. Proportional temperature controller Figure 2 shows a simplified diagram of the basic ingredient of a low-cost proportional temperature controller. The sensed tempera- ture, measured as. variable voliage, is eom- pared with a reference voltage in the com parator. The output of the comparator is used to control a train of pulses generated by the pulse-width modulated (Pw) circuitry, This Jn tur controls the state of the switch that ‘connects the heater tothe power supply. The completceircuitis shownin Fig. Sand Fig. 4. Itis powered by a 12 V dc. regulated supply—see Fig. 5 “The temperature sensor chosen in the de- sign is a disk thermistor that has a value of 180 @ at 25 °C. this connected as one arm in the balanced bridge formed by Rs, Ro, sand Ry. The sensitivity ofthe bridge, or tem- perature set point. is adjusted with Py. The Fig. 1¢. Proportional integral control. Fig. 2. PWM temperature controll ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992values of the three resistors are calculated to limit the sensor current 10 SmA at SO°C (max- imum temperature to be reached), ‘The voltage difference across the bridge is applied to IC), The output, pin 1, of this ‘comparator goes high when the temperature sensor falls below the set point. The gain of IC\q, determined by Rg, is large enough (up to 54 dB) to sense the small changes in the input voltage. An analogue-to-digital pulse-width mod. ulated train of pulsesis generated by ICy.—IC , ‘The frequency of the sawtooth signal at pin 8 of IC\c is determined by Ry-C>. The rela- tiom between the sawtooth signal, tempera- ture signal (pin 1) and the generated PWM. signalis shown in Fig. 6. Over-temperature protection Malfunction of the control circuit or the trac can cause a significant rise in temperature, which, in case of unattended temperature controlled equipment, could be serious, The circuit is wired so that during normal opera- tion, that is, with the temperature below the safety limit set by P3, the output (pin 14) of IC\q is high enough to switch on T,, so that relay Re; is energized as long as the tem- perature does not exceed the safety limit ‘When the temperature rises ap- preciably, the potential across the thermistor, and thus the output of IC\q, drops. ThiscausesTI toswiteh ‘ff, $0 that the relay is deactuated and the mains supply is discon hnected from the heater and IC, This condition is indicated by the sounding. of the buzzer. ‘When the temperature drops again, the voltage drop across the thermisterincreasesandT, isswitched on again, Note that the relay contact must be rated at the maximum current through the heater element Temperature probe ‘Theprobeis made of 100mm lon 20 mm dia., brass tube, of which fone end is crimped. ‘The thermistor is connected by DESIGN IDEAS: screened cable and inserted two thirds of the way into the tube. After satisfactory tests (see below) the probe can be filled with sil- icon sealant and finished as required. Circuit testing Compare the waveforms at pins 1,7 and $ of IC; with those in Fig. 6, Remember that the circuit carries mains voltage Connect a 100 W bulb in place of the heater and adjust Pj to check that the bulb ccan be gradually switched ov and OFF. Using a hair drier, direct hot air at the probe and check that the bulb is switched ‘if instaraty Totestihe safety limit, shortthe sensor ter rminals: Re) will be energized and the buzzer will sound, Remove the short, blow hot air at the sensor and adjust Py until the alarm sounds. Measure the temperature and repeat Until the upper temperature limit is set Temperature calibration There are several ways of calibrating the cireuit. I the medium used is water and the probe is made waterproof, a simple ther- ‘mometer can be used to read the tempera- {ure ofthe water. PotentiometerPisthen var- ied until the triac changes state; the temper- ature is marked and so on fora range of te peratures, Further reading: Motorola: Optoelectronics Device Data, Fourth Exition, 1989, Fig. 3. Circuit of the temperature controller. Fig. 5. Regulated 12 V power supply. [4 — Teo cold —p}4- Too not —pf4— stab contol — Fig. 4. Optoisolator triac driver. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 192 ig. 6. Proportional temperature control.DIRECT DIGITAL SYNTHESIS — DDS Recent developments in integrated circuit technology have made it possible to build all-digital frequency synthesizers. Following a short remedial course on traditional synthesizer circuits, this article looks at the operation of DDS, its advantages and disadvantages. PLL and synthesizer circuits YNTHESIZER circuits are used to AP and RF signals with a stable frequency. They are usually based on a phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit asil- lustrated in Fig, 1, The output frequency is supplied by a VCO (voltage-controlled os- cillator). A phase detector compares the frequency (or the phase) of the VCO output signal wit output signal of the phase detector is. an error signal that is filtered before it is ap- plied 10 the VCO as a control voltage. ‘When the PLL is locked, the VCO is phase locked to the frequency referen: Since itis usually required for the VCO tocover a certain frequency range or chan nel raster, the basic PLL is extended with a programmable frequency divider. This re sults in a simple frequency synthesizer cir cuit (Fig. 2). The VCO allowing, every Frequency between es and Naw fer can be generated by appropriate setting of the pro- grammable divider, N. The factor Nias is the maximum divide ratio that can be set on the divider. Provided the loop filter is cor- rectly dimensioned, the stability of the out- put frequency equals frequency, Where relatively high output frequen cies are required (say, >100 MHz) a fast prescaler (+N) is used ahead of the pro- grammable divider (2N"), Since the use of 4 prescaler increases the step size of the synthesizer from fie 0 N-fet the reference frequency may have to be lowered to achieve the same channel raster. The drawbacks normally with a low reference frequency are negated by & modulo-2 presealer, whose scaling factor can he switched between Nand N+ Figure 3 shows the block diagram of a such synthesizer. The counters “A” and °M" are clocked by the output signal of the pres caler, and count up to a preset value. Counter ‘A’ determines the rate at which the prescaler divides by N+1. On reaching its preset (end) value, it switches the pres eference frequency, fret. The wt of the reference associated by Dipl. Ing. G. Kleine ‘910150-11 Fig. 1 ‘Block diagram of a classic phase-locked loop. or0150-12 Fig. 2. caer to scaling factor N. The prescaler then divides by N until counter "M’ also reaches its preset (end) value. When this happens, counter °M’ resets itself as well as counter ‘A’, and the prescaler is switched back to division by +1 It will be clear that the modulo-2 prin- ciple works only when Mis greater than A. The two counters give rise to a time-aver- ulated aged scaling factor, P, which is from P=(N+1)-A+N-(M~A) =N-M+A The modulo-2 principle thus allows chan- Block diagram of a simple synthesizer nel rasters with frequency steps of fer to be achieved at relatively high frequencies. As aan example, consider a synthesizer with a =10/=11 prescaler (i.e., N=10), A=0 t0 9, M=10, 11, 12, ete. This results in O-M+A, so that all scaling factors start- ing with 100 can be used without “gaps’ ‘A disadvantage of the synthesizer cir- cuits discussed so far is that the output fre- quency is invariably a multiple of fet. This can be overcome by the so-called frac- tional-n system (Fig. 4). As in the modulo. d. 2 system, sealing factors are swite Which results in an average scaling factor that is not an integer (e.g., 145.23). This is achieved with the aid of an accumulator, ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992whose contents are incremented by F on every clock pulse. When the value L is reached, the accumulator switches. the prescaler to division by N41 during one clock pulse. The number of clock pulses over and above remain in the accumulit- tor as the new start value. {t can be shown that this system gives rise to an average scaling factor N+ FIL ‘This means that every required frequency resolution of the synthesizer be achieved by appropriate choice of N and L Asan example, considera system in which N=10, F=0 (0 9, and L=10. Hence, P=10+F/10, so that scaling factors such as 10.1, 10.2, ete. to 10.9 ean be set via the in crement, F ‘An extensive discussion of the oper ation and design of the PLL and syn thesizer circuits discussed above may be found in Ref. 1. This background literature also provides a type classification of PLL circuits and phase detector circuits. In ad. dition, an overview is given of available PLL and synthesizer ICs. Direct digital synthesi DDS A new, all-digital way of generating AF and RE signals is offered by DDS. The principle is shown in Fig, 5. A phase incre~ ment register with high resolution (e-x., 1=32 bits) is provided with a value F 1 corresponds to the rate at which the phase of the clock signal fox is changed. Next, F is added to the existing phase value stored ina latch, and the result ends up in the latch again, When an overflow occurs in the adder, the L-bit-wide result is stored in the latch. This means that there is no carry on position L-+1. The phase value held in the latch forms the address for a sine function ROM, whose data are applied to a D-A (digital-to-analogue) converter. As with DIRECT DIGITAL SYNTHESIS — DDS tout = (NM+A)Ip oy ‘modulus control s101s013, Fig. 3. Block diagram of a synthesizer with a modulo-2 prescaler. ' ret fout= N+P fret phase detector o10150-14 Fig. 5. PLEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 ak, Fout= Zito ar0160-18 fetk Block diagram of a synthesizer based on the DDS principle.Vou! out Bete teat =e Fig. 6. any other sampling system, this D-A con- version must be followed by an anti-alias- ing filter that serves to suppress spectral components above feiy/2 ‘The power of DDS arises mainly from the high resolution of the phase increment register. the adder and the latch. In Fig. 5 for example, the resolution is represented by £, which has a width of 32 bits. The full, resolution need not be used throughout the system, however. The sine function ROM is addressed by, for instance, the most-sig- nificant 16 bits of Z, while the resolution of the DAC is still lower at 12 bits In theory, the maximum output fre- quency of @ DDS-based synthesizer is Vyfeu. Im practice, however, values of O.2fere 10 O.4fey, are achieved because of the anti-aliasing filter (see Fig. 7a). The phase increment, F, and the phase resolu- tion, C, determine the output frequency, f, of the DD synthesizer: fo= (F129) -fa, where a frequency resolution of font is achieved. As an example, consider a DDS in which fy=100 MHz and 2 bits. This offers an impressive resol- ution of 0.0233 He at f (8) Contonts of the sine function ROM at a resolution of 3 bite, (b) Waveform ‘generated with @ phase increment of 1-360'78.(c) Ditto for 2-360" ‘The operation ofthe sine function ROM is illustrated in Fig 6, Figure 68 shows the ‘output values of the ROM at a resolution of 3 bits, One period of the sine function con- sists oF 8 discrete steps (n=0 107), of which the corresponding values are stored in digi tal form at address n. Figure 6b shows the value of in the latch output signal for a phase increment, F, of 1. Shown below is the signal after the D-A converter and the aliasing filter. The amplitude values of this signal correspond to the entries in the sine funetion ROM table (Fig. 6a). The ‘output Frequency. fo, equals Ve. The effect of increasing the phase incre- iment, F, to 2is shown in Fig. 6c. lis seen thatthe range of phase values (or ROM ad- dresses), i cycled through twice as fast, which results in f doubling (0 Vf. ‘The output frequency spectrum of a DD synthesizer will inevitably contain certain spurious components (Fig. 7). A number of these are alias components caused by the sampling operation (Fig. 7a). These com- ponents occur at See + fo Satins i) = 1 fof where jis 1, ‘The component writ- ten as f-atias (1) = feik — fo is the critical ‘component for the anti-aliasing filter. Fig- ure 7a shows this for a DDS in which fo=15 MHz and foi=40 MHz. The other spurious components in the output spectrum are caused by the limited resolution and non-linearity (quantization errors ete.) of the D-A converter. These ‘components are multiples of the output fe- ‘quency as well as intermodulation products ‘caused by “imaging” with the y-axis und the component foy./2. Fig. 7b shows these ad- ditional spurious products at fy=15 MHz and foy=40 MHz. A. number of compo- nents formed by imaging with f=0 and fay ate indicated The level of the alias components de- pends directly on the resolution of the D-A converter, whose non-linearity in addition determines the level of the other spurious components, As in any other real-time sampling system, the alias cormponents are (sin xyfx weighted (Fig. 7a), 80 that their level drops with increasing frequency. ‘The digital circuit between the phase in ferement resister and the sine function ROM is usually referred to as an NCO (nu- merically. controlled oscillator) (Refs. 2 3). A number of currently available DDS ICs have an on-board DAC—others re- quire an external DAC. Where the address Iines ofthe ROM are aceessible, a different conversion table may be used to implement ther waveforms, e.g.. triangular wave, There exist also DDS ICs that contain a sine and a cosine function in ROM. These ICs enable two output signals with » phase difference of exactly 90° to be generated. Such signals are often required as carriers representing I~ (in phase) and Q (quad- ralure) components in complex modulator circuits (Refs. 2: 4:5). The output signal may be modulated by extending the block diagram in Fig. 5. In- serting an adder stage between the latch and the sine function ROM enables ether phase modulation (PM. PSK, BPSK, QPSK) or frequency modulation (FM, FSK) to be realized by adding phase values. Similarly, amplitude modulation (double-sideband' AM with cartier) is achieved by inserting a multiplier between the sine funetion ROM and the DAC, Since all three modulation systems are. im- plemented with digital means, they are in principle purely linear. More information fon analogue and digital modulation sys- tems may be found in Ret. 4 DDS: outlook Although DDS components are still rela~ tively expensive, they have some advan- ages that give them a potential for wide practical use. In addition to the high resol- ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992ution of the output frequency, the short lock (seitling) time is particularly valued. By contrast, traditional synthesizers have a loop filter whose response to the VCO con- trol voltage slows down the speed at which the synthesizer can change its output fre- quency As already mentioned, DDS offers the possibility of pure linear modulation of the ‘output signal. It should be noted however that the all-digital modulation causes cer- tain spurious products in the output signal The level of these products can be reduced by increasing the resolution of the phase increment register and the D-A converter. A further advantage of a DD syn- thesizer is its wide output frequency range of several decades. Again by contrast this is almost impossible to achieve with tradi- tional VCOs. Finally, the stability of the ‘output frequency depends on the reference clock, fk. only. This means that ageing ef- fects in the elock source are ruled out thanks to the all-digital principle of oper- ation . References: 1. Theorie und Anwendung des Phase: locked Loops (Theory and application of phase-locked loops). Published by AT Ver: Ia 2, The DDS Handbook (second edition) Published by Stanford Telecom * 3. Design notes published by Rohde & Schwarz, Stanford Teleconv/Alfatron GmbH, Plessey, Tricom Mikrowellen GmbH, Qualcomm Inc r sin x aliasing M2) 15202540 s56065 80 95100108 sok ¢ four foe Sek etx ad] i 1 ee {«ytH2) $101520 30 aos 60 7580 90 105 teas few? thy at Fig. 7. Alias and spurious components in a DDS spectrum. The solid ines represent ‘multiples of fu. The dashed vertical lines represent image products relative to f=0 oF few/2 4a, Analoge Modulationsverfahren (Anal- ‘ogue modulation systems). By R. Mausl Published by Huthig Verlag 4b. Digitale Modulationsverfahren (Digi- tal modulation systems). By R. Mausl Published by Hiithig Verlag Audio spectrum shift techniques. Elek- tor Electronics October 1991 * This book may be ordered from Alfatron GmbH, Stablgruberring 12, 8000 Munchen 82, Germany. Telephone: +49 89 420491 0. Fax: +49 89 420491-59. AN INNOVATIVE MUSIC COMPRESSION SYSTEM Dr lan Mack, a researcher in the Departs and Electronic Engineering Queen's University, Belfast Northern Ireland, is seen evalu- ating the noise performance of the APT-X 100 digital audio data which was developed by Audio Processing Technology. It is thought to be the first of its kind in the world which quadruples the supply of digital music sig nals stored on a compact disc The brains of the system are the high-speed digital signal processor (DSP) chips, shown in the Foreground, to code and compress from 16 to four, the binary digits (bits) which repre sent the audio signals with no loss of quality ‘The breakthrough not only has far of Electrical compression system, ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 reaching implications for the music indus: try, but also in the field of satellite com- munications. Since it would mean the reduction to a quarter of the current num- ber of sound signals transmitted by satellite, it would reduce to a quarter the bill for expensive sat- ellite time ‘The company was founded jointly in 1988 by Stephen Smyth as a result of research undertaken by him while he was a student at Queen's University, and QUBIS. aholding company of the univer sity, that provided the initial funding. In 1989, Solid State of Oxford became the majority shareholder. For furthe! Paul Smith, Publicity Coordi nator, Audio Processing Tech- nology Ltd., 21 Stranmillis Road, formation, con Belfast, Northern freland BT9 SAF. Telephone: (0232) 662714. Fax: (0232) 382208.8051/8032 ASSEMBLER COURSE PART 1: This is the first part of an assembly-level programming course for microcontrollers in the popular MCSS1 series from Intel. MCS51 processors have been at the heart of many circuits described over the past few years in this, magazine. As far as the courseware concerned, although almost any MCS51-based computer or microprocessor system can be used to run the assembler and the example programs offered, the course is tailored to the 80C32/8052-BASIC computer described about a year ago in this magazine. by Dr. Ing. M. Ohsmann HE aim of this course is 10 provide an introduction into programming and plying the widely used microcontrollers in the MCSS1 family from Intel. In addi- tion, the connection of a number of hard- ware extensions is discussed in relation to assembly-language control programs. As to the ‘minimum requirements’ on your part, the course is at a fairly basic level oth as far as the software and the hard- ware is concerned. Knowledge of BASIC is assumed, and you should have some ex perience in microprocessor circuit con- struction to be able to build the hardware extensions proposed during the course. The description of these hardware exten- sions will be chiefly in line with other pro- jects in the magazine, which means that ready-made printed circuit boards will be available, ‘On completing this course, you are, hopefully, able 10 implement mictoproces- Sor control in a wide range of circuits, be it fan alarm clock with a special ‘wake up’ tune and a birthday memory, an RS232 ¢V24) serial interface analyzer with LC display, or a power meter with a serial in- terface and a tue-rms processor. All of these applications require a small exten- sion to the 80C32 single-board computer (Ref. 1) and some made-to-size software, Software The subject of courseware was already ‘mentioned. To enable you to reach your “goal” quickly, the subject matter discussed in the article instalments is supported by a number of software utilities written to run on IBM PCs and compatibles (versions for the Atari ST are being developed). Re- member, the PC (or the Alari) has the double function of (1) a terminal that com- municates with the 80C32/80S2 computer, and (2) a device used to develop MCSSI assembly code for downloading to the 3032/8052 computer ‘The diskette offered in relation to this article contains all the programming tools required to follow the course: 4 8051 assembler, EASMS1, complete ‘with source code writen in Pascal terminal program, V24COM, com- plete with source code written in Pas cal; 4 8051 monitor program, EMONS1 a number of 8051 programming examples written in assembler; = short documentation (.DOC) files for INTRODUCTION the examples In particular the collection of programm- ing examples on the disk offers the “begin- net’ in assembly language programming the possibility to obtain hands-on experi ence with a number of programming tech- niques. Hardware As already mentioned, the course is best followed if you have a 80C32/8052 com- puter (Ref. 1) up and running. Since this computer can be builtin different versions, it is necessary to first agree on a certain standard configuration required for the course. To make sure that the clock rites timing intervals and the communication speed with the PC are defined, a 12-MHz quartz crystal must be used. If fitted, indue- lor Li has to be removed to prevent the crystal operating at an overtone frequency Next, wite link (or jumper) “A” is installed to enable the microcontroller to address EPROM IC?. The following microcontrol- ler types may be used on the board: 8051, 80C31, 8052, 80C52. $031, SOC31, 8032 or 80C3 For a st test of the completed com: puter, its serial interface is connected to the PC (or Atari), the power is sw and ... wait! Nothing works without a sys- tem EPROM! Monitor in EPROM. No computer system can do anything that makes sense without a program that is ex- ‘ecuted at power-on, This program is often called the bootstrap. After completing the bootstrap routines, the processor usually centers the monitor program, ‘The monitor program used during this, course may be obtained in two ways: by purchasing the —_ready-programmed EPROM available through the Readers Services, or by programming your own EPROM using the EMONS1.IEX file on the course disk. Inthe latier ease, you will ‘also need an EPROM pi ‘The monitor EPROM contains « num- ber of useful programming (Cutilities’) and subroutines to assist the be- ginning programmer. These parts of the monitor program will be examined and used at a number of moments during the ELEKTTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992‘course. They include: Utilitie = ptogram downloading from the PC: display RAM/EPROM contents register modification. ‘Subroutines: inpuvoutput: arithmetic. To test the monitor EPROM, insert it into the EPROM socket on the computer board. Next, connect 2 loudspeaker, a resistor and a switch (o the 64-way DIN a-e connector as shown in Fig. 1. Check the pinning of the connector: particularly when an angled \ype is used, the pin numbers may differ from thase shown in Fig. L = hee | re Fig. 1A ewitch and a loudspeaker are {ised ton an inital teston the 80032 board oé6ded ‘Switch on, and press the reset button, ‘The loudspeaker should produce a short tune, When not, you are in for a round of debugging. Try t0 isolate the problem. The “tune” test should still work when the fol- lowing components are removed from the board: the RAM, ICs: the external address driver, ICs; and the external bus driver, Icio. Ifnecessary, remove these ICs one by ‘one to locate the source of the trouble. If you have an oscilloscope, check that pin 30 ‘ofthe microcontroller supplies clean AL pulses, Clean should be taken to mean that the waveform is stable, rectangular, and formed by 166-ns long pulses, and 833-ns Jong pauses (a duty factor of about 0.2) The level of the ALE pulses should be about 4 V. Any disruptions or jitter ob- served in the pulse train nearly always point 1o problems with the quartz crystal. The PC connection The PC communicates with the mierocon- uroller yia the V24 serial interface on the computer board. Although the V24 inter- face used here works with TTL levels, the connection to an RS232. port on a PC should not cause problems. The system comes to life when you run the terminal ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 emulation program on the PC, and the monitor program on the 80C32 computer. This arrangement allows the PC to send daia to the 80C32 computer, and vice versa, and will be particularly valued when debugging your own programs is in order. ‘The combination of the 80C32 board and the PC thus forms a kind of development system. To check if it all works, connect the PC and the computer as shown in Fig. 2. Run V24COM, configured for COMI, on the PC. The serial port is selected in the asso- ciated CFG file. ‘Switch on the 80C32 board, and press the reset button. The computer should re~ port with the message “EMON 51 Version =" on the PC sereen. Ir this works, you are ready to start programming, Hardware extensions ‘Simple as they may be, the first tests as dis- cussed above already indicate the Mlexi- bility of the $0C32 board in regard of different hardware configurations. AMI the hardware used during this course is accom- modated on a single extension board, which will be discussed in next month's issue, along with part 2 of the course. This board features: LEDs for status indication: input keys: an LCD readout; a digital-to-analogue converter; an analogue-to-digital converter; ‘a MIDI interface. twill be clear that these extensions can be fitted as required. For instance, if you do ‘nol expect to ever develop 2 MIDI applica- tion, the relevant part of the extension cir- ccuit may be omitted. Alternatively. if you require one specific extension only. say. the LCD readout, this may also be built sOS1/9032 ASSEMBLER COU! Tale i a =, at nto ho Fig, 2, Serial Interface connection. separately on a piece of veroboard or strip- board, Assembly language programming ‘The listing in Fig. 3 is an example of an as- sembly language program written with the aid of a word processor. In fact, what you are looking at is XAMPLEOI.ASI con- tained on the course diskette. In this so- called source code program, cach line contains, in principle, one instruction only. ‘The way in which the instructions are writ- ten is called mnemonics, which isa kind of shorthand for the instruction in words. In addition to the lines that result in the actual Instructions for the microcontroller, there are lines containing assembler commands, which are necessary to manage the assem- bler program itself, Further, the listing is completed with comment lines that serve as an aid in understanding the operation of the program. The use of comment is en- tirely optional, but considered good prac- tie for the obvious purpose of documenting one’s programs. More infor- mation on the commands that may be used is found in the file EASMS1.DOC on the course diskette. 2 PRUE vaweugon asi Venu Ser Cowman =QU 0308 MONTTOR Fig. 3. This is what a typi compatible word processor, is used by the assembler to product looks like. Written with the aid of an ASCII block of object code. ‘The program shown here, XAMPLEO1.AS1, may be found on your course disk.COMPUTERS AND MICROPROC! The function of the assembler, EASMSLEXE, is to use the source code File to “assemble” a sequence of machine code instructions, data and addresses, that forms an executable program (object code). This is called the assembly phase. In other words, the assembler builds a new file, in which the mnemonics are replaced by opcodes, and all comment is removed. ‘The output fie has the extension HEX (for example, XAMPLEOI HEX), and is nearly impossible to interpret for us humans, as it is a long series of two-digit numbers, To the controller, however, these numbers are ‘meaningful as they represent instructions, operands, data and addresses, which together form a program that can be ex- ecuted when it is contained in the program memory, The object code is generated on the PC, and sent to the 80C32 board by means of a download operation carried out with the aid of the V24 terminal program. Inaddition to the object code, EASMS1 also generates a lis file with the extension LST (see XAMPLEOI.LST on the course disk). The list file shows the object code produced by the assembler alongside the associated line of source code, Figure 4 illustrates shows the file types and operations encountered as the pro- ‘gramming session evolves. Although the list file can not be used by the microcon- troller, itis valuable for the programmer as it allows him or her to check the function of the assembler right up to the last bit of the object code, Those of you keen on getting started slraight away with the assembler are ad- vised to read the information contained in XAMPLOL.DOC. First steps in programming Following the initial hardware and soft- Ware tests, we have arrived at a point where programming theory can be tackled. A complete description of all the hardware aspects and the full instruction set of the MCSSI family of microcontrollers is be yond the scope of this course, and readers are advised to consult the databooks for this (Ref. 2, This course follows a different ap- proach, as it discusses hardware and soft- ware aspects in a step-by-step manner, completing the picture gradually. The dis- XAMPLEO1. ASM ‘object code 24 tink v24coM “Terminal Download MONS1 socae computer Fs | | Wronitor 10109 1-19 Fig. 4 memory of the 60632 board). From source code (writlen on the PC) to object code (loaded into the program cussions of the various subjects are sup- ported by examples found on the course disk. First, we tackle the various registers and memories that can be addressed inter- nally and externally by the 8051. Processor registers The 8051 normally processes data with « size of one byte. The processor does this with the aid of a number of intemal regis- ters, each of which is capable of holdis fone byte. The accumulator. A. is the cen- tral register capable of logic or arithmeti ‘operations on two operands. For example, if you want co add the value “10” to a byte, the byte is loaded jnto the aceumulator, and the constant “10" is added. The result of this addition, the sum of 10 and the byte. is stored in the accumulator, Inaddition to the accumulator, there are other 8-bit registers, whieh ean he used, for instance, for the control of the interfaces and the internal timers. In most micropro- ceessors and microcontrollers, these regis ters are addressed with spectal instructions. By contrast, the designers of the 80: 4 quite different, more elegant, approach To enable all registers to be accessed with as few as possible instructions, each of them is assigned a special address with a value greater than 07Fy. The accumulator, for instance, has the internal address OED, ‘The registers are accessed as so-called Special Function Registers (SFRS). This allows the devices in the MCSS1 family to have different numbers of SFRs, and yet use the same instruction set. When an SER address is given in combination with inter- nal addressing (which concems the 128. byte internal RAM), the content of the relevant SFR is taken as the operand, ‘The ports and the serial interface of the 8051 are addressed just like SFRs. An overview of all SFRs will be given in next ‘month's instalment. In addition to the SFRs there are eight general purpose registers identified as RO to R7. These registers form a register bank and are used for intermediate storage of data. There are no fewer than four of these banks, which will be particularly valued ‘when dealing with interrupt processing During this course we will use register ‘bank “0° only. The register banks are con- tained in the intemal data memory. After resetting the controller, register bank °0" is automatically sele Program, data and internal memory ‘The microcontrollers in the MCS51 family have different memories for programs and. data, ELBKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992Program memory ‘The program memory can have a size of up to 64 KByte, and holds the instructions for the controller. It can also be used to store look-up tables and constants. In this course we will use the controller with external program memory only, and that is why the extemal access (EA) terminal, pin 31, is ‘made permanently low. This disables the program storage function of the internal memory (if available). Access to the exter nal program memory is signalled by PSEN (pin 29) going low. ‘The program memory need not always be ROM or EPROM. Part of the address space may be formed by RAM or external VO circuits. The program memory ad- dresses 00000q1 to 040001) correspond to the lower addresses 000004 10 04000} of the EPROM, IC7, while program addresses (04000); {© 08000, correspond to the area 04000), 10 08000, in the system RAM, Ce. This means that instructions in the lat- ler range are fetched from RAM, which allows new programs to be loaded into RAM. and executed from there, in spite of the presence of a programmed EPROM. Data memory MCSSI controllers are capable of writing {to and reading from a data memory with a maximum size of 64 KByte. The data memory is used chiefly for the storage of large amounts of data. The RAM on the 80C32 computer board, ICs, may be used for data as well as program storage. tis lo- cated in the address area 00000} to 08000}, which means that if you store a program beginning at 04000 in the data ‘memory. it ean be run equally as a program from 04000, onwards, since access to pro- gram memory at these adresses selects the RAM also. Most microcontroller applications can be run with very Tittle data memory, and consequently the internal RAM is often used instead of an external data memory ‘The intemal RAM has a size of 128 bytes inthe 8031 and the 8051, and 256 bytes in the 8032 and the 8052, Since in this course 4 maximum of 128 bytes of internal RAM will be used, all these controllers can be used without problems. ‘The internal memory is also used to contain the controller registers. The stack, used for subroutine management, is also located in the internal RAM, so thatthe ae- tual number of bytes free for use by the programmer is usually smaller than 128, ‘The internal RAM range between 20, and 2Fy is the so-called bit-addressable range, which is used by certain bit manipu- lation instructions to address, change or call up any single bit. Finally, the monitor EPROM occupies a few bytes in the inter- ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992 = a , | = 4 F Bit4o Bit 7 t Je. : Bio sar] { % 7 ene j : N — aa he ee ee Byte address ‘910108 -T-14 Fig. 4. type). nal RAM, of which the address division is shown in Fig. 5 What's next? ‘The next instalment in this series will show a short overview of the MCSS1 instruction sel and the SFRs. The first programming examples shed light on the processing of extemal signals snd the data transfer via the V24 (serial) interface. Also, a few im- portant monitor routines will be explained that can be put to good use in your own pro- ‘grams a ‘Map of the internal RAM memory (128 or 256 bytes, depending on the processor References: 1. "80C32/8052-AH BASIC single-board computer”. Elektor Electronics May 1991 2. 8bit embedded controller handbook, 1990, Intel Corp. order number 270645, ‘The course diskette (5%inch 960" KByte MSDOS format) mentioned in this article is available under order “number ESS 1661, and the EPROM containing the monitor: EMONS1 under order number BERS, and ordering infor-MINI SQUARE- WAVE GENERATOR by K. Schoenhoff A handy square-wave generator is described which provides fifty-seven stable frequencies for the testing of digital circui . It is battery operated and its output signal is TTL compatible. MONG the products of Seiko-Epson is a series of programmable frequency- ‘generator ICs with square-waveoutput. These CMOS circuits, housed in a 16-pin DIL. case, containastablecrystal oscillator and two pro- grammable dividers. The difference between the 11 members ‘of the series lies primarily in the fundamen: tal oscillator frequency and in the operation of the second divider stage. Oscillator fre- {quenciesof | MHz, 796 kHz, 600 kHz, 153.6 kHz, 100 kHz, 96 kHz, 60 KH, and 32.768 kHz, are available, The first divider is set by the three bits at inputs CTLI-CTL3and provides divisors of 1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 10 and 12. The sec- ond divider is programmed by the three bits atinputsCTLA-CTL6 and provideseither eight ddecadie divisors in the range 1-10 or eight binary divisors in the range 1-128. The se- ries also contains a type (86500) that has no cxtillatorand sthusnothingbuta programmable divider AllICsin theseries require the samesupply voltage (5 V), and have identical pinouts. Most of them draw a current of only about (0.5 mA, but the 1 MHz, 768 kHz and 600 kHz types draw up to 2.0 mA. The output of all typesis TTL compatible, and is in most cases S| -* ® e- ! Q a true square-wave (duty factor=50%). Only when divider 1 is set to 30r 5, and divider 2 tol, forinstance, toobtainan output of3333KH2 or 200 KHz, does the output signal become asymmetrical AILICs have a direct oscillator output (POUT, pin 11), which can be used indepen dently. This output is disabled by making Reset) pin 14 logic 1 our srotstett Fig. 1. Block schematic of the frequency-generator IC. NC(CSEL) NC(EXC) FOUT TEST 91015112. Fig. 2. Pinout of the frequency generator IC. it diagram of the mini square-wave generator. ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS FEBRUARY 1992&B or es Fig. 4. Printed-circuit board for the mini square-wave generator. Resistors: RI-Ro= 2910 R7= 12k Capacitors: Ch =1000F CLC3=1 uh 16 Fig. 5. Front panel foil for the generator. ELEKTOR ELECTRO: FRBRUARY 1992 PARTS LIST ‘Semiconductors: Di, D2= 1N400), D3=LED, 3mm. high efficiency ICL =SPGROADBN yee text) 12 = 7805 $|,S2=BCD switeh for PCB mounting 'S3= sngle-poe,single-hrow switch Br] =9 V banery with connecting lip ‘Man-made fie housing PCB 910151 Pin 12(NC-EXC) of theSPG8650 isan input for an extemal clock os- cillator; the logic level at pin 13, (NC-CSEL) determines whichelock is used tern; O=intern). In the present circuit, itis possi- bletousecitherthe TypeSPGSS0BN, Vas (nnix=100 kHz). In the prototype MHz) or the SPG8651BN, 36S0BN was used; the circuit of thisisshownin Fig. Land itspinout in Fig. 2 This type is ideal for use inauniversal test instrument, since itprovides 57 stable frequencies in the range 1-833 MIz. “The circuit diagram of the gen- erator in Fig. 3s, of course, domi- nated by IC. The only other items are six pull-down resistors, Ri-Ry, the unavoidablebinary-coded dec- imal BCD)coding.switehes, and Sz,andasimpiebattery power supply. The low-drop voltage regula tor, which ensures low power dis- sipation, provides a stable 5 V out- put Thetwo capacitors, Czand Cs, ‘ensuresmooth operation ofthe 7SLL, On-off indicator Dy must be a high-efficiency type that, in spite of the relatively high bias resistor, lightsbrightly.AnormalL-ED would draw as much, or more, carrent as the restof the circuit together, Since it is required to keep the unit as small as possible, and inde- pendent of the mains supply, the rg choice of battery posesaslightprob- Tem. The use of a9 V (PP3=6F22) battery and 78L05 regulator. asused in the prototype, offers the best so lution. Itispossibleto use four. 5V HP7=AA=RG batteries, but these take up more vom than a9 V type. Also, their discharge characteristic is against theme the regulator does not work withan input below 5.5V. An up-to-date, but rather more ex pensive, solution would be to use ‘two 3 V lithium batteries. Construction Theunitisbestbuilton theprinted- Gireuit board shown in Fig. 4 Populating itshould not presentany problems. ‘Thecodingswitchesareupright types that can be obtained with screwdriver or knob control “The fol forthe front pane Fig. S—carries 2 copy of the fre- quency table from theSeiko-Epson datasheet. WhendlifferentCs irom. the series are used, the table from the relevant data sheet should be cutout to replace that in Fig. 5.SWITCH-MODE POWER SUPPLY Areliable, sturdy switch-mode power supply is not the easiest of electronic circuits to design, as many of you may have found out the hard way. However, there is no reason to remain forever put off by the thoughts of special transformers, the mains potential in the circuit and RF interference. The circuit we present here is aimed at providing a hands-on introduction to working on an SMPSU. What we have in mind is a versatile circuit that is safe and based ‘on inductive components that are available ready-made. by J. Ruffell Mabe iconic equipment gener ally needs one or more d.c. power sup, plies, Depending on the type of equipment, either a linear or a switch-mode stabilizer is used. Compared to the linear supply, the SMPSU (switch-mode power supply) has some distinct advantages, including smaller size and higher efficiency for the same out pput power. In spite of these advantages, the SMPSU is by no means an ideal direct volt- age source, because the output voltage 18 usually not very ‘elean’. In practice, how ever, an SMPSU is often the cheapest, and in afew cases, the only, altemative. These days, SMPSUs are applied in, among others, com: puters, TV sets and car radio boosters. The power supply described here efficiently com- vertsa high, unregulated, voltage into a low, regulated, voltage The control IC The heart of the SMPSU is an integrated cir- cuit originally developed to function as a reset controller in. microprocessor systems. Although generating a reset signal s far sim pler than regulating a direct voltage, this IC contains everything to perform the latter function quite well Forcenvenience, the block diagram of the control IC (IC) is shown inthe circuit diag. ram of the power supply (Fig. 1). The plastic TO-226 enclosure contains a reference smoarator, an attenuator and a switching transistor, Three points in the in= ternal circuit ofthe [Care bonded out to pins for connection to external parts. The internal voltage divider is dimensioned such that the toggle point of the comparator lies at 4.61 V ‘When the input voltage (applied to pin 2) ex- ‘ceeds this threshold, the apen-collector out- put of the IC (pin 1) switches to high impedance, Because of the comparator’s hysteresis, the switching transistor does not start to conduct until the input voltage és lower than 4.59 V. The potential at pin 3 of the MC34064 must be atleast 1 V below that at the analogue input. This difference is necessary because the IC (peculiar but true) is powered via its input. The input/supply ‘current is about 400 1A ata voltage (Uss) of 5V. The control loop In power supply terminology, the present SMPSU is classified as a nor-continuous ‘automatic regulation loop, which isbasically the same as an on/off regulator, The main characteristic of this class of regulator is that zulating, element (Ts) has only two son’ (conduct current) and ‘off (block current), MOSFET'T switches under the control of ICi. However, because of the small output ‘current (only 10 mA) and the presence of an on-chip diode between the Input and the ‘utpat, the open-

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