Beginners' corner - state-variable filters

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OCTOBER 2000 £2.65

Distortion: the facts

lector
DeaIg wit -- ¡Ins interference
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Métiirting fat

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Bitter buffers II

Circuit ideas
PSU noise reducer
Keyless lock
PC CD -rom switch
Measure EHT
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CONTENTS

75J COMMENT 783 ONE-STAGE RECEIVERS

Baffling the speaker buyer. Single-stage RF receivers have anumber
of advantages over their more complex
sisters and they save on costs.
756 NEWS Richard Ball finds out if zero-IF is best
• Spectrum auctions hinder wireless
for wireless.
services roll-outs
• Ericsson redirects its mobile phone
business 784 BETTER BUFFERS II
• Long wait for mobile exposure data Dave Kimber discusses short cuts for
•Electronics skills dearth analysing the complementary feedback
addressed pair —including methods for determining
•STM moves into FPGAs distortion.
Cover photography Mark Swallow

760 DISTORTION: 789 NEW PRODUCTS

Nc\% product outline, edited by
THE FACTS Richard 1‘ ikon.
Misconceptions on the subject of
distortion abound. Ian Hickman looks at
aselection of them, and presents some
801 DEALING WITH MAINS
practical results illustrating the true state INTERFERENCE
of affairs relating to this emotive subject. Joe Carr looks at the problem of
interference from the mains, describing
765 GPS COMES OF AGE ways to avoid it —and ways to remove it.
GPS in mobiles, cars and even watches is
on the increase and it isn't stopping there, 806 CIRCUIT IDEAS
says Melanie Reynolds •l hill-duplex data direction indicator
• Simple keyless lock
• Power supply noise reduction circuit GPS in mobiles, cars and even
766 X-RAY SPECS watches is on the increase and it
X-rays in brown envelopes are one of the • Switch aCD-ROM's power
• Extended range PWM isn't stopping there, reports
most common sights in hospitals but all
• Speaking die Melanie Reynolds. See page 765.
that is set to change as digital imaging
techniques that can store X-rays on • Simple trigger pulse generator
computer take over. • Measuring EHT beam current

768 WHEN SOUND WAS 814 MEASURING

CYLINDRICAL TRUE POWER
As circuit miniaturisation increases,
Joe Pengell describes his search for
knowing the temperature of small
high quality reproduction of cylinder
components becomes ever more
recordings and his efforts to replay them
important —and ever more difficult to
using modern techniques.
determine. Cyril Bateman has been
searching the Net for alternative ways of
It seems logical to use digital
assessing power dissipation.
techniques to store and analyse
medical X-rays. Although some
818 BEGINNERS' CORNER: hospitals are equipped to do so,
the take-up of the new technology
STATE-VARIABLE FILTERS is slow. Find out why on page 766.
State-variable ttiters are alittle more
complicated than most, but they make up
for their complexity with versatility, as
Ian Hickman shows.

822 WEB DIRECTIONS

Useful \yell address es tor the electronics
772 PROFESSIONAL VIDEO designers
MULTIPLEXER
Emil \ladkov 's multiplexer selects one 825 LETTERS
of eight video sources and can be set to In the dark ages of reliability, Comme
cycle round the inputs. The unit is une bombe! ¡MD versus THD, Blowing Surrey Satellite Technologies
controlled via simple RS232 commands. atrumpet for the horn. receives the lion's share of DTI
space funding. This and more
news on page 756.

November issue on sale 5 October

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

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 Baffling the speaker buyer

1
I
EDITOR
tis an unfortunate fact technology. Pure research
Martin Eccles that the great majority of throws up new and better "Do loudspeaker
020 8652 3614 loudspeakers are not understanding of the hearing makers design for
designed for accurate sound mechanism, which could
CONSULTANTS reproduction. Instead they are drive better designs. performance or
Ian Hickman designed to make aprofit for Unfortunately though, the
the manufacturer and the inventors who could put profit?" asks
Philip Darrington
retailer. This is what happens these ideas and technologic,
Frank Ogden lohn Watkinson
when atechnology matures. to use in the loudspeaker are
Figure 1shows that when a long gone and the remaining
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATION
technology is young, the finance-focussed
Jackie Lowe passive loudspeakers. This
industry is rich in inventors management doesn't
020 8652 3614 and investors and the rate of understand the old means that the price the
progress is rapid. Buoyant technology —let alone the manufacturer has to hit is
EDITORIAL E-MAILS sales of anew technology new. significantly lower than the
[email protected] fund further development. retail price.
However as atechnology CAD reduces costs, but Now the manufacturer has
GROUP SALES EXECUTIVE matures, the inventors have does little for performance to abide by the same
Pat Bunce less to do and generally move The result is that nothing economics as everyone else.
on to do something more happens. The new This suggests that the factory
020 8652 8339
challenging. This leaves the technologies are ignored and door price should be acertain
industry run by management the new CAD system only multiple of the parts cost.
ADVERTISEMENT E-MAILS
who only have aslight grasp lowers the cost of the design Applying asimple
[email protected]
of the technology. As they process without improving calculation will show that
can't improve the the product in any way. even in apair of hi-fi
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION
technology, all they can do is In loudspeakers, the results speakers retailing for several
020 8652 8339 hundred pounds, the drive
make it cheaper. are really quite depressing.
In reality they are forced to Traditionally the hi-fi dealer units in those speakers must
PUBLISHER
make it cheaper because all has expected to make a have cost no more than about
Mick Elliott of the startup companies that significant mark-up on ten pounds each.
began the technology have
EDITORIAL FAX grown to asize where the Technology Business
020 8652 8111 market isn't big enough to 4
driven driven
support all of them unless the
CLASSIFIED FAX price comes down.
This stage is called Maturity
020 8652 8938
commoditisation. Fierce
NEWSTRADE ENQUIRIES
competition in an
oversupplied market drives
020 7907 7777
the price down further, Inventors leave
forcing manufacturers to -founders retire
ISSN 0959-8332
switch production to
countries where labour costs

Û Û
For a full listing of are lower. In this climate, the
RBI magazines: management isn't about to
http//www.reedbusiness.com
take any risks and so the
Development Cost Commoditised
product design stultifies. and becomes -design stultified
Inevitably new materials polarisation afactor
REED and technologies come along.
f
w'¡iit BUSINESS which could improve the Fig. 1. The life of atechnology.
glg.7 INFORMATION

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October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 753

COMMENT

the electronics has fallen are inferior to the rest of the

Were your speaker cables
according to Moore's Law. equipment.
dearer than your speaker's
But the cost of the speaker In professional audio, the
drive units?
hasn't. As aresult to get a quality of the sound produced
With drive units built down to balanced system it is now cannot exceed the quality of
acost like this, the necessary to spend about ten the monitoring loudspeakers.
performance is not going to be times as much on the speakers If the speakers aren't accurate
special. as on the amplifier. enough to reveal adefect, the
It is particularly saddening Unfortunately this isn't defect goes unnoticed —
that the unwitting purchaser of widely known. however good the listener.
such speakers is then likely to The result is that the The equipment
be gulled into buying aset of majority of today's audio manufacturers have the same
audiophile speaker cables systems are imbalanced. problem. How is it possible to
which will probably cost more Generally the amplifiers are test apiece of high-grade
than the drive units they producing signals that are far audio equipment without
connect to. It doesn't need too good for the drive units. In high-grade speakers?
much thought to see that the fact agood definition of an
overall result is that audiophile is someone who What does 'inaudible'
purchasing the cables simply spends freely to eradicate an mean?
gives the user even worse insignificant problem while The consequences are all
value for money. neglecting amajor drawback. around us. The widespread use
Loudspeaker drive units are It would be very easy to of digital audio compression
associated with electronics, mutter, "caveat emptor" and or bit-rate reduction is largely
but they are not themselves shrug one's shoulders. After on the assumption that it
electronic. Every one knows all, if people are foolish doesn't affect the sound
that the cost of performing a enough to buy products on quality. Unfortunately, testing
certain electronic process this basis, the industry should audio compression with poor
continues to fall. It's formally be allowed to make them. loudspeakers is an invalid test.
known as Moore's Law and it The trouble is that the Where the information
applies particularly to mediocre speaker is no longer capacity of the speaker is the
computers and digital audio confined to the consumer. limiting factor, the use of
devices. By association, most Moore's Law has ensured that compression won't make the
people think it applies to the cost of most of the sound any worse.
loudspeaker drive units. technical equipment needed to The listener will wrongly
Unfortunately they are wrong. make arecording studio has assume that the compression
Figure 2shows the fallen. Large recording studios is inaudible and asource of
consequences. have fallen on hard times impairment will enter service.
Some time ago when because the cost of equipping With impaired speakers, the
electronic equipment was apersonal studio is within the compressed result will sound
expensive, abalanced audio reach of the enthusiast. indistinguishable from a
system required roughly the Excepting, of course, the compact disc and the result
same amount to be spent on loudspeaker. As aresult the will be dubbed 'CD quality'.
the loudspeakers as on the home studio owner generally This term is meaningless.
amplifier. Today, the cost of settles for loudspeakers that On precision loudspeakers,
rather than commoditised
speakers, all of the popular
Equal
compression formats produce
spend ,
Fig. 2. Balanced system is a audible artifacts in
1990 Amplifier
moving target. The cost of comparison to direct CD
an amplifier has fallen, in playback. It is easy to
accordance with Moore's Cos Cost compare MiniDisc and CD
Law, but the cost of follows doesn't because the same titles are
speakers hasn't. Moore's Law follow released in both formats,
Moore's Law
which have come from the
same digital master.
2000 Amplifier Speaker If an obvious loss of quality
isn't apparent when playing
Speaker
the MiniDisc version, the
should cost
loudspeakers aren't accurate
10 times cost
of amplifier
enough.

754 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

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rill9DATE
Spectrum auctions could
hinder wireless services roll-outs
industry body the Federation of the that auctions are the most effective for the Radiocommunications
Electronics Industry (FE!) fears that a way of making use of spectrum," said Agency), suggest that the FEI's
proliferation of radio spectrum Simon Wilson, director responsible for concerns may be well founded.
auctions as aresult of arecent report radio issues at FE!. This latest report, which has
to the government will impact the Expected at the end of August, the particularly worried the FE!, seems
roll-out of new wireless services. SMAG 2.4GHz report, which has to indicate the use of frequency
The FEI's concern centres on the been carried out by spectrum auctions to actually determine how
roll-out of services in the 2.4GHz band engineering consultancy Aegis the spectrum will be used in the
which includes fixed wireless access Systems, is specifically on licensing absence of any official policy. For
services and even the deployment of "policy" according to Aegis MD Paul example, the report recommends the
Bluetooth-enabled equipment. Hansel!. use of spectrum auctions, "where the
This follows the publication of a This is significant because it best configuration for spectrum is
document on the 2.4GHz band contrasts with last year's technical unclear".
commissioned by the Spectrum study by Aegis on technical issues As aresult auctions could impact
Management Advisory Group such as interference at 2.4GHz. many of the newer wireless
(SMAG). the body that advises the Hansell would not comment any applications. These include
government on radio spectrum issues. further on the new document but the Bluetooth, 802.11 wireless LAN,
"The treasury will probably content of other recent studies such HomeRF and public radio fixed
continue to encourage spectrum as the 'Future of Convergence and access services, currently operating
auctions. We, however, don't believe Spectrum Management' (produced in the 2.4GHz band.

Bulk of space funding goes to Surrey Satellites

Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and micro satellites. "We have got SSTL has to find £11m to match
is to get the lion's share of £15m £11m —the first funding that we the DTI grant, which should not
support the government has have ever had." said an SSTL prove too difficult. The organisation
announced for the UK's space spokeswoman. has, according to the spokeswoman,
programme. SSTL is 95 per cent owned by the a£36m order book.
The Guildford-based firm will use University of Surrey and has The money is to be split between
the cash, which has been made previously been self-funding, three projects including TOPSAT. a
available by the British National ploughing profits back into the Defence Evaluation and Research
Space Centre. to develop its mini University. Agency (DERA) led project to provide
low-cost high-resolution images of the
ground. SSTL will be providing the
'bus' —the chassis and flight systems —
with the cameras coming from DERA.
SSTL is also prime contractor for
the GEMINI project to build a
geostationary satellite, the first
attempted by SSTL, weighing under
400kg that will provide
telecommunications in Nigeria.
The third project called Disaster
Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is
described as anew concept in
satellite management. DMC will
involve satellite to satellite message
passing, groups of five to seven
satellites will co-operate (pictured).
IInternet cattle auctions could be a
feature of farming in the future, said
science minister Lord Sainsbury.
He was announcing £2m of
funding for the S@TCOM
programme, which aims to help UK
companies exploit satellite comms
and navigation.
Sieve Bush

7.
3 October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 UPDATE

Ericsson redirects its mobile phone business

Ericsson is carrying out astrategic manufacturing, and increase R&D t oi the 3G market —solid proof of our
review of its mobile phone handset mobile Internet to expand leadership unmatched position as market leader."
business. Disappointing results could in GPRS and 3G." But investors see worrying signs in
see the Swedish firm selling other Externally sourcing products would the mobile-phone handset business
manufacturers' hand sets under its be asignificant move for Ericsson, which experienced aprofit cut in the
own name for the first time. which is one of the world's top three saine period.
"To restore profitability, astrategic mobile-phone technology firms. Sales of mobile phones increased by
review is ongoing and anumber of Contrasting with the disappointing 40 per cent, but Ericsson said the
firm actions have been initiated," said handset business, Ericsson benefited consumer products business unit —as
acompany statement. One of the from strong business in building handset are called —went into loss,
things being considered by Ericsson mobile phone networks, which helped "due to component shortage from a
seems to be the badging up of lower first half pre-tax profits to jump by key supplier and an unfavourable
cost hand sets. more than 300 per cent. product mix."
The company said it would, "These results confirm Ericsson's Pressure is on the firm to restructure
"address the entry-level segment with leading position in mobile infrastruc- its handset business, particularly to
aspecial purpose organisation and ture," said Kurt Hellstrifim, president take advantage of the booming
externally sourced products, concen- of Ericsson. "So far, we have captured low-cost consumer end of the mobile
trate the product portfolio, streamline over 50 per cent of both the GPRS and phone market

Long wait ahead for mobile exposure data

UK mobile phone users will not be including SAR ligures on their Phones and Health by the
able to access information on the phones. However, it is unlikely that Independent Expert Group on Mobile
amount of energy absorbed by the any mobile phones in the UK will Phones in May this year.
human body while using amobile actually include such radiation The telecoms US authorities have
phone until next year at the earliest. information until the official already taken alead on the SAR issue
This is despite arecommendation European SAR standard is finally and introduced arequirement for
from the UK government's mobile agreed early next year. mobile phone makers to disclose
phone health review earlier this year This information was SAR figures for all new products
that such information should be made recommended to be made available to submitted for product certification.
available to users. consumers in the Report on Mobile Melanie Reynolds
Absorption of energy in the body is
considered acrucial issue in assessing
exposure levels. The amount of
Schools warning 'low key'
energy absorbed is given by the SAR The significance of aletter to Group on Mobile Phones, known as
(specific energy absorption rate) of a schools warning about the possible the Stewart report, into mobile
phone but the problem at the moment dangers to the health of children phone health risks.
is there is no commonly agreed from mobile phone use has been "All we've done is make sure
method of measuring it. European played down by the Department of schools are more aware of the Stewart
standards body CENELEC is Education. report," said an Education spokesman.
working on this but the earliest date a The letter sent by the Department "We're not saying mobile phones
standard is expected to be ready is the of Education to head teachers are dangerous or that they shouldn't
end of this year. states the findings of the recently be used. We're letting schools decide
"Some companies measure them published Independent Expert their own policy." he continued.
[SAR] in different ways," said a
Department of Health spokesman.
"It's important if the consumer is to World chip Top Ten see sales jump 37 per cent
have information on this that
everybody's measurements are done STMicroelectronics has jumped two places in the world rankings in the first six months of the year
in exactly the same way." according to Arizona analysts IC Insights.
A leaflet stating the ST is now the seventh largest semiconductor company in the world. The other big mover in the
recommendations of the report is rankings is South Korean firm Hyundai which, by its acquisition of LG Semicon, jumped six places in
currently being finalised and is the rankings to join the top ten for the first time at No.8 having grown 232 per cent.
expected to be distributed this Korea's biggest semiconductor manufacturer Samsung has climbed aplace from No 6to No 5,
summer. almost doubling its sales on the back of astabilised DRAM price and set to hit $9bn for the year.
In March 1999 the European Although Philips Semiconductors grew sales by 36 per cent, it dropped out of the top ten.
Parliament recommended mobile STMicroelectronics' growth came from its flash memory, analogue, and mixed-signal products.
phones should carry labels giving ST is spending $3bn on capital additions this year which should keep its growth continue strongly
information on the fields generated as into next year and 2002.
afunction of distance. If accepted the Overall, sales of the top ten companies rose 37 per cent in the first half.
recommendations would be IC Insights expects a17 per cent increase in the worldwide semiconductor market in the second
implemented in January 2001. half of 2000 compared to the first half of the year, with the full-year 2000 market forecast to be 35
Leading mobile phone suppliers, per cent larger than in 1999.
including Nokia, Ericsson and "Strong second half sales of PCs, cellular phones, and consumer systems are expected to give the
Motorola, are working together to semiconductor producers their best year since 1995," said IC Insights.
agree acommon set of rules for

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 757

UPDATE

Electronics skills dearth addressed

Electronics companies suffering Marine Training Authority (EMTA) industry, Sanderson said: "We [the
skills shortages have abeen given a which is home to new working EMTA] have been worried for along
fast-track route to the Government's group. time. The top end, high graduate
ear to voice concerns over training. To be called the Minister's level, is more or less adequately
At the request of Malcolm Wicks, Working Group for Skills, Education served.
Minister for Lifelong Learning at the and Training Policy Advice, the "It is the senior technician level,
Department of Education and group will represent all of the with NVQ level 3or 4, where the
Employment, anew industry work- engineering community. But, accord- problem is. We are working with the
ing group has been set up specifically ing to Sanderson, electronics will be Federation of the Electronics
to advise the minister on training and amajor concern. "I will be support- Industry to encourage employers to
skills issues within the engineering ing growing industries. Electronics is invest in work-based training."
industry. right at the top of this list. Iam less The EMTA is home to the
"I think he genuinely wants interested in declining industry." National Training Organisation
advice," said Dr Michael Sanderson, Speaking about the shortage of (NTO) Group for all engineers
chief executive of the Engineers and skilled staff in the electronics except civil engineers.

months, along comes asoftware update and

they're in trouble. Because they don't have

STM moves into FPGAs

adeep understanding. There's no such thing
as aquick entry; no such thing as aquick
understanding."
Ien people are standing around an elephant made hundreds of millions of dollars. "There is acommon thread why they all
asking: "What is this?" The person standing He then achieved fame as the founder and failed," says Sud, "they all grossly
by the tail says: 'This is arope'. One first president of Lattice Semiconductor, the underestimated the software challenge.
standing by aleg, says: 'This is apillar'. successful programmable logic house. For Primarily FPGA is asoftware challenge not
One by the body says: 'This is awall'. The some years he's been in charge of new ahardware challenge. To succeed in FPGA
one by the trunk says: 'This is asnake'. One projects at ST. you need to set up on the model of an EDA
by atusk says: 'This is adagger'. Then The elephant story signifies that, in company not asilicon company. You need
they sit down together to draw apicture of FPGA, the whole is greater than the sum of to start with customers' software
an elephant, and they get awall with arope its parts. "The big companies who tried it requirements and the third party interfaces
and asnake hanging off it standing on a failed because they didn't see the whole needed, not by designing apiece of
pillar." picture", Sud told EW, "they totally silicon."
The story is told by Rahul Sud, underestimated the scale and complexity of He points out that Pilkington
something of alegend in the semiconductor such aproject." Microelectronics —whose design was
industry, who is master-minding The fallers at the FPGA fence are aroll- licensed by Motorola and Toshiba —did
STMicroelectronics' move into FPGAs. call of the industry's biggest and best: Intel, things the wrong way round by first coming
The story is designed to illustrate why every Texas Instruments, Motorola, IBM, Philips, up with, "a beautiful silicon architecture"
big company has failed in FPGA, but why Toshiba and AMD. and then asking the software people to write
ST will succeed. "Most managements who have tried to do software for it.
Sud came to prominence in the 1980s as FPGA wanted to do it quickly. They've "To be successful you need aportfolio ol
the designer of the only commercially said: 'Let's take alicence'," says Sud, "so pre-programmed, pre-packaged IP," says
successful product Inmos ever had when it they've taken alicence, and got amask-set Sud, "because people don't have the design
was independent —a I6K NMOS SRAM and asoftware tool-set and, and run wafers resources to do it."
which became an industry standard and and got into the business and, after six Sud has, for some years, been building a
formidable resource for ST -alarge and
growing group of software developers in
India, his home country. Being able to
straddle both Indian and Western culture he
has devised asystem of developing
architectures in the West, for which the
code is written in the East.
"Just try hiring 100 IC designers in the
US or the UK. First of all there's the
recruitment challenge, then there's cost. So
I've decided to go to the UK for the
architectural development because it's the
nearest thing there is to Silicon Valley while
being closer to home".
Sud is currently looking for architectural
talent in the UK for the project.
How soon before there are any products/
Sud is resolutely not going to under-
estimate the difficulties. "Realistically," he
replies, "it's going to take two to three years
before we can enter the market seriously." •

ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

SMALL SELECTION ONLY LISTED -EXPORT TRADE AND QUANTITY DISCOUNTS -RING US FOR YOUR REQUIREMENTS WHICH MAY BE IN STOCK
HP New Colour Spectrum Analysers LAST FEW ONLY TEK491 10MC,S-12.4GHZ 12.4-40GHZ -E50:
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 e‘4ele
1:1

...the facts

H
Misconceptions on the i-fi enthusiasts range
from those who are high-
mance, and that valves are the only
serious contenders. Some even insist
subject of distortion ly competent technically, that alarge single-ended triode — or
familiar with the detailed paralleled triodes —is the only answer.
abound. Ian Hickman performance figures for The triode camp points out that such
their equipment, to those who scorn amplifiers are substantially charac-
looks at a selection of such technicalities and rely solely on terised by second-harmonic distortion,
their golden ears. which is less unacceptable than third.
them, and presents som Ibelong to neither camp. Both seem But, of course, while asingle-ended
to spend more time listening to their valve amplifier may provide notably
practical results equipment, and its failings, real or second harmonic distortion, if driven
imagined, than to the music itself. near to its limits, it must run out of
illustrating the true state My hi-fi equipment has varied over available swing on both positive and
the years, from a Williamson style negative peaks. No amplifier is inher-
of affairs relating to this amplifier with avery nice Gardner's ently immune from third-harmonic
output transformer, through avariety
emotive subject. None of of home-brew solid-state amplifiers,
distortion, simply by virtue of being
single-ended.
these results is new, but to some fairly run of the mill com-
mercial stuff at the moment. But arti-
Many who approve of push-pull
amplifiers only give their blessing to
some may surprise you. cles on the subject in this, and other,
magazines continue to hold great
class A designs, due to the harmonics
associated with cross-over distortion.
interest for me. The argument goes that crossover dis-
It is apity that the very interesting tortion introduces high orders of har-
recent article' did not include some monic and intermodulation distortion.
measured performance parameters. In This is much more objectionable than
this article, I present some of my a little second, or even third order
recent thoughts on sound reproduc- non-linearity.
tion, and in particular to its impair- Imust confess that Ithought so too
ments due to amplifier problems. until awhile ago. It is easy to see how
this serious misconception can arise,
Seconds versus thirds -and as the following makes clear.
others
There is continuing controversy over The anatomy of cross-over
amplifier architectures. Some advo- distortion
cate class A as the only possible route To illustrate the point, Imade up a
to hi-fi. Others insist that push-pull low power model of apush-pull out-
class B amplifiers can be engineered put stage with bad cross-over distor-
to be perfectly satisfactory. tion, shown in Fig. 1. The two devices
Yet others insist that semiconductors were selected for matched current
will never give an acceptable perfor- gain, although the match was admit-

760 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 AUDIO

+15V Fig 1. Circuit oía small

low power push-pull
output stage with bad
cross-over distortion.
Cross-over distortion
appears at around the mid-
point in the signal
15V excursion, where one
I tt t If
transistor takes over from
the other.

tedly checked at afew milliamps only. with the output signal; the 'dead
Figure 2 shows it handling an input space' in the latter is clearly visible. I
at 440Hz, concert pitch A above mid- measured the distortion differentially
dle C. The input is 12V pk-pk, while, as before, but the gain of one channel
due to the cross-over region's 'dead has been trimmed back, producing the
space', the output is only about I0.4V same waveform as the THD meter
pk-pk. output in Fig. 3. Fig. 2. Showing the input signal of 440Hz at 12V pk-pk, larger
Measured total harmonic distortion It is not possible to 'off-tune' the trace, and the output signal, smaller trace, at 2V/div. vertical,
is 10%. Figure 3 shows the residual THD meter to produce a residual 500ps/div. horizontal. The output signal is smaller than the
signal output from the THD meter. showing the same waveform as Fig. 4, input due to crossover switching error.
This is just the distortion products, the as any mis-tuning grossly shifts the
fundamental having been suppressed phase of the fundamental relative to
entirely. the residual, long before its amplitude
It seems obvious from the peaky changes significantly.
nature of the residual that the distor- In case anyone should still think that
tion consists mainly of high-order har- crossover distortion results in pre-
monics, These are likely to be most dominantly high harmonics, Figs 6
deleterious to music reproduction, or and 7 should dispel the notion. Figure
indeed any signal. 6 is the spectrum of the input 440Hz
But does the residual mainly com- sinewave shown in Fig. 2; it is sup- i\-Ls.—Prer—‘7-ttir
prise high-order harmonics? A THD plied by a 10Hz to 10MHz video
meter does exactly what it says, and oscillator of modest purity. The sec-
no more. It measures total harmonic ond and third harmonics are about
distortion; it does not measure total 0.07% and 0.05% respectively, the
distortion. others all being around 80dB down or
Looking again at Fig. 2, you can see more relative to the fundamental, giv-
that the amplitude of the fundamental ing aTHD of about 0.1%.
has itself been reduced. One can only Figure 7 shows the spectrum of the
define distortion as any departure of signal after it has been through the
Fig. 3. Showing the residual signal from the simple class-8
the signal from what it should be. In output stage. The fundamental is
about I dB lower than the input, while output stage, after removal of the fundamental. This residual
the case of a nominally unity gain
was obtained using aTHD meter.
stage, such as Fig. 1, this means that the level of the second harmonic is lit-
any departure of the shape of the out- tle changed. This reflects the good
put signal from the input signal is —by matching of the devices, although
definition —distortion. This was mea- higher order even harmonics are more
sured by probing both the input and prominent than in the input signal.
output signals, and displaying trace A However, the third, fifth and other
plus trace B, with trace B inverted, i.e. odd harmonics indicate the substantial
adifferential measurement. odd-order distortion due to the cross-
Figure 4 shows the result, together over effect. Clearly, they roll off in
with the input signal. The smaller much the same way as the spectrum
it I It I I It
trace is the distortion, and it is simply of asquarewave, although they are all
asquarewave with sloping edges. It is well down on the fundamental. This is
in fact, the missing slice out of the of course because, as Fig. 4shows, the
middle of the input, due to the cross- 'squarewave' distortion component is
over 'dead space'. itself much smaller than the funda-
Clearly, this distortion includes a mental sinewave.
component at the fundamental fre- Of course, apractical class B output
quency. This does not appear in the stage will not show the severe
residual output of the THD meter, due crossover distortion of Figs 1to 5 —
to the notch at the fundamental. even open loop. But aclass B output Fig. 4. The larger trace is the input signaL The smaller is the
The spectrum of the distortion will stage will evidence some crossover distortion, measured by probing both the input and output
be similar to that of a squarewave, distortion, especially after afew years signals, and displaying trace A plus trace 8, with trace ti
except that due to the sloping edges, use, due to drift of component values. inverted, i.e. adifferential measurement.
the higher frequency harmonic com- Where this is such as to leave the
ponents will actually roll off rather stage slightly over forward-biased, the
faster than in atrue squarewave. phase of the crossover distortion will
Figure 5 shows just the harmonic be inverted relative to that shown in
components of the distortion, together Fig. 4.

761
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
AUDIO

Harmonics and ucts are replaced by third-order inter-

intermodulations modulation products.
While crossover distortion produces a These products related to original
range of odd harmonics of decreasing frequencies f1 and 12 by the expres-
amplitude, a class-A amplifier will sions 211-12,2/2—f1,2/1+12 and 212+11.
typically show far fewer harmonics of In the case of 1000Hz and 1333Hz, the
significant amplitude. These are prin- third-order difference intermodulation
cipally second harmonic in the case of products are 666Hz and 1666Hz.
asingle-ended amplifier and third in These appear either side of the two
the case of apush-pull amplifier. original tones, while the third-order
Two identical single ended ampli- sum intermodulation products appear
fiers, harnessed together in bridge-tied between the two third-harmonic com-
load push-pull, will show zero second ponents.
harmonic distortion, given a perfect Again as it happens, in the case of
phase splitter to drive them. However, 1000Hz and 1333Hz the third-order
the degree of distortion suffered by a difference products are not discordant.
pure sinewave is, of itself, of purely But on typical music, the effect is even
academic interest. worse than second-order intermodula-
Fig. 5. The larger trace is the (distorted) output signal. The Sound produced by asolo musical tion, which may itself also be present
smaller is the distortion, measured as before, but the gain of instrument will normally contain many in apoorly balanced push-pull system.
one channel has been trimmed back, producing the same harmonics, both odd and even —except When substantial non-linearity is pre-
waveform as the THD meter output in Fig. 4. (The dead space in the case of a clarinet, where the sent, the result is agenerally muddy
steps in the output waveform are more clearly visible in this third harmonic greatly exceeds any sound, as commonly encountered on
view than in Fig. 2.) second. As Dr Leakey, aone time col- an old black-and-white pre-war movie.
league of mine and researcher into Figure 8 shows how second-order
stereo reproduction once remarked, non-linearity —the major non-linearity
'God never intended us to listen to in aconservatively rated single-ended
sinewaves'. class-A amplifier —affects the transfer
However, it is important to remem- characteristic. Non-linear component
ber that harmonic distortion is pro- 'd' is shown as 0.1, or 10% of the lin-
duced by non-linearity in the transfer ear component.
characteristic of an amplifier. This A second-order parabolic curve
same non-linearity has other, more added to alinear characteristic must,
dire, effects. When two tones are pre- for large values of the abscissa (X-axis
sent, non-linearity will produce from value), head off to plus infinity for
them, other tones, not present in the both positive and negative values of X.
¡ input signal. You can see this in the upper plot. But
A degree of second-order non-lin- over a restricted range, such as
wid 411 6...•
1 1 earity, typical of asingle-ended ampli- —1<X<+1, the expression can closely
fier, will produce —in addition to sec- model apractical amplifier, as shown
ond harmonic products of the two in the lower plot.
tones —two extraneous tones not pre- In fact, the characteristic looks pret-
Fig. 6The spectrum of the input signal, 440Hz. Spectrum sent in the original signal. These are ty linear. But if you look at the page
analyser settings: span 0-5kHz, resolution bandwidth 10Hz, the sum and difference frequencies. edge on, squinting along the line of the
sweep speed 10s/div., display smoothing off. For example, in the case of 1000Hz characteristic, it is clearly non-linear.
and 1333Hz —amajor third —333Hz Similarly, athird-order component can
and 2333Hz will appear. For some model the way the gain of aclass-A
pairs of tones, such as aperfect fifth or push-pull amplifier departs from true
amajor third, the sum and difference linearity. The effects of both types of
tones (intermodulation distortion — non-linearity, in terms of both har-
IMD) will themselves be harmonically monic and intermodulation distortion,
related to the original two tones, so are summarised later.
they will not sound particularly dis-
cordant. Which do Imeasure?
For more abstruse intervals though, From time to time, there is discussion
the products become more discordant. as to what measurements represent
When many tones are present, as in meaningful results when evaluating
orchestral music, the opportunities for amplifier performance 3. Should an
infelicitous products multiply alarm- amplifier be evaluated by the looking
ingly. at level of its harmonic distortion, e.g.
Where substantial third order non- using aTHD meter? Or should some
linearity exists, the situation is even other measure such as intermodulation
worse. As explained in chapter 4 of performance be used?
Fig. 7. The spectrum of the output signal, analyser settings as ref. 2, atwo-tone input again results in From some articles, one might
in Fig. 6, showing that crossover distortion is basically a extraneous products. But this time, not almost get the impression that adesign
squarewave. only do you have distortion compo- trade-off is possible between THD and
nents at the two fundamental tone fre- IMD. Would that this were so! If it
quencies themselves, and third har- were, one would surely choose to min-
monics of the original tones, but also imise or completely suppress the latter,
the simple sum and difference prod- at the expense of increasing the former.

762 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 AUDIO

But both forms of distortion are pro- of times, if any good reader checks the
z) :=1+ 0.12
duced by one and the same mechanism results and finds an error, perhaps he or
—non-linearity of the transfer charac- she would be kind enough to inform
teristic. the editor.
Given the degree of, say, third-order
non-linearity of an otherwise distor- THD or IMD measurement?
tion-free amplifier, the level of third- It is clear from the preceding that a
harmonic distortion at rated full drive is given non-linearity factor, d, deter-
fixed, as is the level of third-order IMD mines both the harmonic distortion and
-5 10
due to atwo-tone signal whose peak the intermodulation distortion of an
envelope voltage again equates to rated amplifier. Either type of measurement
full drive. can therefore in principle be used to
Take for example aclass-A push-pull characterise an amplifier. In practice,
amplifier whose transfer characteristic on the other hand, there are various Rx)
is given by y=A(x-0.1x3), where y is pros and cons to each, and these are
Vow ,xis Vin and the non-linearity fac- summarised below.
tor d is 0.1. For simplicity, let A=1
(unity gain as in Fig. 1) and let rated THD measurement Equipment need-
full drive be Vio =2V pk-to-pk. If Vin is ed to measure THD is alow distortion
lxsin(ot), where (I) is Itx440 radi- AF oscillator, a THD meter and, to
ans/second, i.e. IV peak at 440Hz, then take full advantage of the equipment,
—and Iwill spare you the maths —Voo , an oscilloscope to view the distortion -03 o 03
is 0.925V at 440Hz plus 0.025V at products made available at the meter's
1320Hz. residual output socket.
Commercial low-distortion oscilla- Fig. 8. Showing how second order non-linearity, the major
Thus there is in addition to the third
tors and THD meters are readily avail- non-linearity in aconservatively rated single ended class A
harmonic, a distortion component at
able, or can be constructed for about amplifier, affects the transfer characteristic. Over alimited
the fundamental, reducing its amplitude
by 7.5%. In the case of purely second- £100 each from designs presented in range, lower, it looks fairly linear.
order distortion on the other hand, the this magazine. In any laboratory, asuit-
amplitude of the fundamental is unaf- able oscilloscope should be available. be determined. From this factor, inter-
fected. But in addition to second har- Thus THD measurement is simple and modulation performance can be
monic, asmall dc offset is produced. straightforward, and relatively inex- deduced if required.
The offset is usually of no importance, pensive in terms of equipment. Where several orders of non-lineari-
being blocked either by atransformer Since aTHD meter can only notch ty are significant, for example
in avalve amplifier, or alarge elec- out and suppress asingle input signal, crossover effects, aTHD meter pro-
trolytic in asolid state amplifier. it cannot be used directly for inter- vides aconvenient single measure of
These effects are tabulated in asepa- modulation measurements. However, distortion. Monitoring the THD meter's
rate panel, where again Ihave spared where one type of non-linearity pre- residual output on an oscilloscope,
you the maths and simply quoted the dominates —second, or third, say —a while adjusting the output stage bias on
results. However, as my maths was measurement of percentage distortion a class-B amplifier, is particularly
always prone to unreliability at the best permits the corresponding factor dto revealing.

Appendix
The transfer characteristic of an amplifier can be characterised as ex)=A(x+d2x2+d3x-3+...) where xis the input voltage Vin,A is the
gain and ex) is the output voltage V. To make the analysis convenient, Inormalised A to unity, and took xas the rated full drive
voltage, likewise normalised to unity. Relative values of the fundamental and distortion components in Vmt were then calculated
in terms of the second-order and third-order distortion parameters d2 and d3,and tabulated.

Second-order non-linearity
a) harmonic distortion:
vin Vow
dc 2f
1 d2/2 cI2/2
b) intermodulation distortion:
Vio Vout
fl 12 dc fi 12 2fi 2f2 2
1 — ft 12+ 11
0.5 os d2/2 0.3 0.5 d2/4 d2/4 d2/4 d2/4

Third-order non—linearity
a) harmonic distortion:
vin vow,
dc 2f 3f
1 (1-3d314) O d3/4
b) intermodulation distortion:
vin vaut
11 f2 dc f2 2fi—f2 212 - 4 3 hi 3/
2 2f2+11 211+12
0.5 0.5 0 (0.5-3d3/16) (0.5-3d3/16) 3d3/32 3d3/32 d3/32 d3/32 3d3/32 3d3/32

763
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
AUDIO

IMD measurement. The equipment distortion amplifiers may simply not be 10kHz or 20kHz that THD meters have
required to measure intermodulation dis- possible. aresponse extending to 50kHz, 80kHz,
tortion includes two AF oscillators, an or even in some instruments to 250kHz.
intermodulation-free means of combin- In summary A very powerful method of measur-
ing their outputs into asingle two-tone The performance of hi-fi amplifiers may ing the performance of amplifiers with
signal, and an AF spectrum analyser. be evaluated either by THD measure- very low distortion is to use aspectrum
The specifications of the two oscilla- ments or by IMD measurements. Each analyser attached to the residual output
tors are slightly more relaxed than those method has its advantages and disad- of aTHD meter. After notching out the
needed for THD testing. If new, how- vantages, though these are sometimes fundamental, the THD meter may pro-
ever, the spectrum analyser is likely to overstated. vide 40dB or even 60dB gain to the
be very expensive, and in the range For example, the suggestion that THD harmonics, extending downwards the
£1000 to £1500 even if second hand. measurements are meaningless and effective range of the spectrum analyser
Where one type of non-linearity pre- worthless is clearly an exaggeration, by that amount. By this means, products
dominates — second, or third, say — a perhaps based on the misconception that down to around —120dB relative to the
measurement of corresponding inter- THD and IMD are unrelated. fundamental may be measured, limited
modulation distortion permits the factor While it is true that intermodulation only by the system noise floor&
dto be determined. From this factor, it distortion is more disagreeable than har-
is possible to deduce harmonic distor- monic distortion, you cannot trade one References
tion. More simply, one tone can be for the other. As the separate panel I. Breden, R. 'A new 100W class B
turned off and the harmonic distortion shows, both are directly related to the topology'. Electronics World, June
measured directly. distortion parameters d2,d3,etc. 2000, pp 486-490.
Where several orders of non-linearity Far from being useless, aTHD mea- 2. 'Analog Electronics', lan Hickman,
are significant, for example in crossover surement at 10kHz, or even 20kHz, is Butterworth-Heinemann, 2nd Ed. 1999,
effects, asingle measure of distortion is very revealing. An amplifier whose full ISBN 07506 4416 8.
not readily available, due to the large drive THD at 10kHz is little, if any, 3. New. A. THD is meaningless'.
number of significant products at dif- worse than at 300Hz clearly is not slew Electronics World, June 2000, pp 440-
ferent frequencies. rate limited, and will therefore be sub- 447.
Due to the limited on-screen dynamic stantially free of transient intermodula- 4. Hickman, I, 'Measure THD below
range of an AF spectrum analyser, tion distortion. 0.001%', Electronics World Aug. 1999,
meaningful measurements on very low It is precisely to permit testing at pp 626-633.

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CIRCLE Na1011 ON REPLY CARD

764
ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000
You are here... If your car is equipped with the RAC Trackstar vehicle security service then it can be located easily in case of theft or emergency.
The system was developed by Trafficmaster and combines GPS satellite tracking from Trimble Navigation with aGSM wireless communications
module. Together these allow the vehicle to be located and let the driver talk with the control centre.

Global positioning
system comes of age which is called GLONASS (Global
from trucks through diamonds to the
GPS in mobiles, cars immeasurable worth of human donor organs Navigation Satellite System) and Europe is
or an Alzheimers patient. These can all be planning its own known as Galileo.
and even watches is on The frequency spectrum for the European
kept track of —no matter what, no matter
satellite positioning system was agreed last
the increase and it isn't where.
"The number of packages moving around month at the World Radiocommunications
stopping there, says this world on an annual basis are about ten Conference and it is tentatively scheduled to
billion," estimates Hall. "We see ahuge go into operation in 2008.
Melanie Reynolds. opportunity for managing those assets But is there room for another system?
utilising GPS." According to Hall the answer is yes,
There are other areas where GPS comes because signals from the satellites in either

T
he number of devices that are able to into its own. systems can be used for the benefit of the
determine fairly precisely where you Architecture, engineering and construction end-user.
are is increasing and, as the cost of the can all make use of GPS's precision for their "We're intrigued with Galileo because we
technology falls and its use becomes more measurement purposes. Hall says the like the idea of interoperability. We're not
valued, this number can only increase. technology is accurate enough to be able to tied to GPS so we're working with the
Automobiles, hand-held computers, mobile pinpoint acoin in afield. people at Galileo now to understand the
phones, digital cameras and watches are just GPS (global positioning system) is the standards and the spectrum they intend to
the beginning. satellite system most commonly used to use," explains Hall. "We fully expect, and
"We've found that as technology becomes determine position. Its satellites are intend, to incorporate the capabilities of
available, people see what it will do for financed, deployed and maintained by the Galileo into what we do and merge the two."
them," comments David Hall, vice president United States. The intentions of the Galileo creators are
of mobile positioning and timing There are 24 satellites in the constellation not yet clear, but Hall says the only potential
and three spares. The spares can be used to problem with satellite systems will come if
technologies at Trimble Navigation.
According to Hall, the future is even more replace afaulty unit at any time. Eight new people start charging for the services.
appealing. "When you start adding in the satellites are sent up at around five year The GPS system is free, and the US
concept of the Internet and instant access to intervals and eight are then taken out of Government has said it will continue to be
information, because of the wireless service. so for at least another ten years. "As we
communications link, which is tied to a As you can imagine, this is not cheap. The continue to get these pervasive applications
location, then it becomes an awesome tool." system cost $13-15bn to launch and costs for protecting so much and saving life, how are
Hall sees the biggest growth market being maintenance are ongoing. you going to charge for it?" asks Hall.
in asset management. He sees assets ranging The Russians also have asystem deployed

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 765

MEDICAL ELECTRONICS

ray specs
X-rays in brown envelopes algorithms; computer-analysed for approximately the same size as the
diagnostic information, as is done object being imaged. Traditionally
are one of the most common now with cervical smears; shared
between specialists in different
the detector is ordinary
photosensitive emulsion, but in
departments across anetwork; and
sights in hospitals. But all archived on optical disk or tape
digital radiography, it is replaced
with either asemiconductor sheet or
when finished with. aphosphor screen.
that is set to change as This process —especially the Most digital X-ray cameras adopt
archiving —is potentially much the semiconductor sheet approach,
digital imaging techniques cheaper and more reliable than typically based on alarge piece of
storing X-ray films. Films often go amorphous (glassy) silicon. This
that can store X-rays on missing when they are urgently panel is coated with a scintillator'
needed —even when film is only material, typically caesium iodide.
computer take over. being transported within ahospital.
Up to 13 per cent of films can go
On the back of the sheet is printed an
array of thin-film transistors (TFTs).
missing, according to statistics from When an X-ray photon hits apoint
University Hospital Wales. This on the screen, the scintillator layer
means they have to be re-taken, emits aphoton of light into the

F
or decades, hospitals have implying not just extra expense at semiconductor, creating atiny,
captured X-ray images on 50p ashot, but also higher radiation localised current, just like in a
photographic film, moved them doses for the patient. discrete photodiode. This current is
around on trolleys, and then filed Besides this advantage, direct-to- amplified by the nearest TV!' in the
them away in big brown envelopes. digital radiography also delivers microcircuit array on the back of the
But in the age of the digital some benefits in terms of image screen. The array is constantly
camera, hospitals are now beginning quality. How, then, does it work? scanned by the instrument's control
to consider switching their radiology Like all X-ray images, digital circuitry, which records the exact
departments to solid-state imaging X-rays are created by shining position of each such photoelectric
techniques that can capture an X-ray radiation through the human body event —thus building up adigital
picture direct to computer. Such directly onto alight-sensitive plate. image of the amount of X-radiation
pictures could be enhanced and Because X-rays can't be focused, incident at every point.
manipulated by image processing this detector plate has to he The difficulty has been to make
the silicon sheets large enough. After
at least ten years of research, the
Amorphous silicon x-ray detector
technology can now go up to several
Image centimetres square. Several
Scintillator
processor companies have developed
instruments based on this
technology. They include well-
known medical instrumentation
companies like GE, Siemens, Philips
and Sterling.
Their products work at equivalent
dose rates to those needed by
ordinary X-ray film cameras, with
less distortion from magnetic fields
or background light, and the images
are stable for along time — unlike
Photodiode film.
array Other companies, including
Fischer and Swissray, have

ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 MEDICAL ELECTRONICS

developed an alteinati‘e method hospital. To view the images, you orders for four more systems at big
whereby the X-rays can be detected need very high resolution medical centres in Houston, New
on aphosphor screen. The light from workstations. To pass them around, York and Philadelphia.
this is focused into asmaller CCD you need anetwork —one that won't Direct digital radiography has
array, which accumulates the image grind to ahalt when people start barely touched the UK yet, but
over aperiod of up to 20 seconds. circulating hundreds of 9Mbyte to several hospitals have taken the first
This two-stage approach, though 16Mbyte JPEG image files every necessary steps — namely, converting
apparently more complex and less day. You also need something called their conventional film X-rays to
sensitive, is cheaper because its a"picture archiving and electronic form by digitising them,
components are pretty standard, communications system," or PACS, so they can be managed with a
unlike the large semiconductor which is anon-trivial combination of PACS.
panels. It has gained Swissray a hardware and software. Two notable exceptions are the
market lead on its competitors. Such infrastructure is neither new Diana Princess of Wales
So far the whole market has been cheap nor easy to install. For this Hospital in Birmingham and
slow to take off, despite its evident reason the hospitals that are University Hospital of Wales
long-term prospects. Capital cost is adopting digital X-ray technology (UHW) in Cardiff — whose Agfa
no doubt one reason —though the tend to be either completely new digital X-ray system produces over
running costs of digital systems are building projects, or large multi-site 250 000 radiological images ayear.
claimed to be lower, with no trusts that have recently been merged Thirty more NHS hospitals are now
chemicals needed for development and are thus faced with in the early stages of procuring
and far less space needed for storage. communication problems that they PACS, using funds provided through
Another is the reluctance of some have to solve anyway. the government's £1 bn NHS
radiologists to move away from film Most installations so far are in the modernisation plan.
—which is, when all is said and US. Recently, Data General Once these PACS and associated
done, avery well understood and announced it had won acontract to networks are in place, the economics
reliable technology. supply aPACS, with Swissray of going direct to digital will become
But the main reason appears to be digital radiography, to New Jersey's much more attractive. It looks like the
that, to get the most out of digital biggest hospital, St. Joseph's. end is in sight for those dog-eared
radiography, you need adigital Swissray simultaneously announced brown envelopes.

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 767

 When sound was

cylindrica
Joe Pengelly describes his quest for high-quality
reproduction of cylinder recordings and his efforts to
replay them using modern techniques.

F
or many years now, the high of the classical greats of the early twen- obviated blasting both in the record and
quality of sound being extracted tieth century were more than willing to replay process. To this end Iconstruct-
from old 78 records, thanks to commit their audio efforts to the cylin- ed abreadboard set-up, as in Fig. 1.
modern technology, has been truly der format. The set-up uses a spring-driven
amazing. Little of that technology, Certainly, such recordings are in the Edison cylinder 'Concert Opera'
however, has been directed towards minority, but they are there, lying in machine, minus its horn. Since this
reproducing the surprisingly good cylinder grooves awaiting quality real- machine not only revolves acylinder
sound signal to be found lying in the isation. These considerations, along on its mandrel, but also traverses it, I
grooves of cylinder recordings. with the difficulty of finding efficient, was able to use astationary high-qual-
Why is this? Well, the quality of the smooth running contemporary ity pickup head and cartridge with a
acoustic sound coming from the assort- machines for replaying cylinders has diamond stylus of the correct dimen-
ed horns of acoustic cylinder machines no doubt inhibited would-be experi- sions. This is ahigh-quality component
is poor enough to be rejected by even menters in this field. The youngest tra- made by Expert Pickups. Even with
the most undemanding of listeners. ditional cylinder player is at least 70 such a crude set-up the results were
Further, the duplication of spurious res- years old. encouraging.
onances in both the recording and It was my conviction, however, that
acoustic replay processes, for the hi-fi asound replay system that was feed- A modern cylinder replay
buffs, is anathema. screw driven, merely floated asapphire machine
Then there is the criticism that the stylus in ahill-and-dale grove and not A Leverhulme research grant enabled
repertoire on cylinder only embraces employing steel needles as used with me to commission Plymouth University
the popular or sentimental culture of its laterally recorded 78 discs where the to build an all-purpose electrical cylin-
day. Hence it is of little consequence needle was progressed by groove walls, der replay machine. Built to my
and not worthy of restoration efforts. was worth investigation. Further, the specifications, this machine is capa-
This is amisconception though. Many hill-and-dale groove recording system ble of playing every known speed,

768 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 HISTORY

size and groove configuration of Fig. 1. Something

cylinder, Fig. 2. old, something
The machine is servo speed con- new -aspring-
trolled from 1to 250rev/min. It can run driven Edison
backwards so that the stylus impinges cylinder 'Concert
on the grooves in afresh way. Also, the Opera' machine,
pickup head can be angled in relation to with its horn
the groove over avery wide range. replaced by a
Further, with its stylus merely float- modern light-
ing in acylinder groove, the continued weight arm and
maintenance of the pickup arm at right cartridge.
angles to acylinder at all times is con-
firmation that the correct feedscrew
value is being used. Above all, the
pickup head plays with all the delicacy
of that of a high-grade long-playing
record deck.
All credit must go to Mike Stringer
of Plymouth University for construct-
ing this superb piece of machinery
from what was merely my general con-
cept. With such amachine the whole
cylinder world was made available to
me.

Unwanted bumps
Having this remarkable cylinder replay
machine though, Isoon ran into prob-
lems with the fidelity of the sound sig-
nal being extracted from cylinder
grooves. Pre-eminent amongst these
problems was the 'bump' rendered
with unwelcome fidelity. This is
caused by the pickup head bobbing up
and down in agroove due to alack of For aconstant-amplitude recording, a Rumblings
roundness in many cylinders. magnetic pickup cartridge, because it is A particular problem with cylinder
My colleague, David Lane, has velocity operated, will produce an out- recordings is the high level of rumble.
addressed this problem and all but put that rises at 6dB per octave with The high rotational speed of 160rev/min
removed the offending bump, together increasing frequency. Of course, there - when compared with LPs at 33-
with agreat deal of attendant rumble. was no 'standard' recording character- 1/3rev/min and the 78rev/min of coarse-

istic for acoustic cylinder recordings, groove records - pushes the rumble
Electronic enhancements but we felt it advisable to counter the components further up the passband.
The replay signal from a cylinder rising output with frequency from the Fortunately, there is little programme
recording is an extremely complex one. magnetic pickup. information present in acylinder record-
Alongside the wanted information, A passive equalisation network ing below 200Hz, making it relatively
there are high levels of broadband achieved this compensation. It provides easy to remove the rumble with asteep
noise, impulsive noise -or clicks -and a 6dB/octave rise in the bass, being cut filter.
rumble. The first stage of amplification +3dB at 200Hz and a6dB/octave fall In this case a 15-pole Butterworth
must be very linear if all these compo- in the treble, being -3dB at 6kHz. high-pass filter with a -3dB point at
nents are not to intermodulate with the Loss due to this network was made 160Hz was used. This filter eliminates
wanted signal. up by another OPA604 gain stage almost all traces of rumble. As abonus,
Additionally, the first stage must not before passing the signal to conven- it greatly reduces the 'bump' that occurs
clip on even the largest amplitude tional Baxandall-type bass and treble once per revolution because of alack of
'click'. If it does, truncation will spread controls and a Quad-style variable roundness in cylinders that have become
the spectrum, making it more difficult slope low-pass filter, also based on a deformed over the years.
to reduce subsequently by filtering. OPA604. At the normal output level of
A Burr-Brown OPA604 was chosen IV rms, the THD between 100Hz and Alternative replay methods
as the first amplifying device because 10kHz is below the noise. Not until the David Lane has significantly reduced
of its very low distortion performance. output is raised to 5V rms does the many of the noise problems associated
It can also operate on ±22V rails, THD reach 0.01%, indicating the good with the electrical replay of cylinders,
ensuring adequate headroom for even linearity of the design. reducing the 'bump' to an occasional,
the largest of spurious noises. more benign, 'thump'.

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 769

HISTORY

Fig. 2. Built at A side advantage of such a system

Plymouth would be its capability to be focussed
University, this all- even as asignal is being extracted from
purpose replay agroove, in order to achieve the best
machine is capable sound quality.
of playing every Whether such a light beam replay
known speed, size system will obviate wow and flutter in
and groove cylinder replay, resulting in acertain
configuration of sourness of sound, remains to be seen.
cylinder. Not only are many cylinders out of
round. They can have groove depres-
sions within their ovality, compound-
ing the problem. This depression defect
causes astylus to further accelerate and
decelerate in agroove, resulting in an
additional sourness of sound.

Wax cylinders
In the main, wax cylinders do not suf-
fer from lack of roundness with its
attendant problems. However, because
of their soft composition, they are erod-
ed significantly with every playing.
It is for this reason that all but one
of the tracks on the CD that Ihave
However, the lack of roundness in It is the limited weight that can be produced has originated from hard-
many cylinders prevents any method imposed on the stylus bar of amodern wearing celluloid cylinders. When I
other than acoustic replay being used. electrical cartridge that remains the have ventured to play wax cylinders
A heavy acoustic sound box alleviates bugbear. Hence my letter of enquiry in electrically however the results have
the bobbing up and down in a tradi- the May 2000 issue of Electronics been startling. Such a track can be
tional player. Similarly weight also World, in which Iasked if anyone could heard at the conclusion of the CD, in
reduces the bump experienced when help me with anon-contact replay sys- the production of which credit must
using amodern lightweight pickup. tem involving, say, alight beam. go to Peter Cox and David Lane.

Unique expert authorship and trusted Television (

magazine identity. Real repair and
How to pay
troubleshooting info —not just cribs from
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manufacturers' data sheets. Ease of reference —
this book is an essential repair tool, not just
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ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

TiePieScope HS801 PORTABLE MOST

ABRITARY WAVEFORM GENERATOR-

STORAGE OSCILLOSCOPE-
SPECTRUM ANALYZER-
MULTIMETER-
TRANSIENT RECORDER-

•The sophisticated cursor read outs have

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

Measured signals and instrument

settings can be saved on disk.This
enables the creation of a library of
•The HS801: the first 100 Mega samples measured signals. Text balloons can be
per second measuring instrument that added to asignal, for special comments.
consists of a MOST (Multimeter, The (colour) print outs can be supplied
Oscilloscope, Spectrum analyzer and with three common text lines (e.g.
Transient recorder) and an AVVG (abritary company info) en three lines with
waveform generator). This new MOST measurement specific information.
portable and compact measuring
instrument can solve almost every
measurement problem. With the •The HS801 has an 8bit resolution and a
integrated AVVG you can generate every maximum sampling speed of 100 MHz.
signal you want. The input range is 0.1 volt full scale to 80
volt full scale. The record length is
32K/64K samples. The AVVG has a 10 bit
The versatile software has a user-defined resolution and a sample speed of 25
toolbar with which over 50 instrument MHz.The HS801 is connected to the
settings quick and easy can be parallel printer port of a computer.
accessed. An intelligent auto setup
allows the inexperienced user to perform
measurements immediately. Through the The minimum system requirement is a
use of a setting file, the user has the PC with a486 processor and 8 Mbyte
possibility to save an instrument setup RAM available. The software runs in
and recall it at a later moment. The setup Windows 3.xx /95 /98 or VVindows NT
time of the instrument is hereby reduced and DOS 3.3 or higher.
to a minimum.
TiePie engineering (UK). 28 Stephenson
Road, Industrial Estate, St. Ives.
When aquick indication of the input Cambridgeshire, PE17 4VVJ, UK
signal is required. a simple click on the Tel: 01480-460028: Fax: 01480-460340
auto setup button will immediately give a
good overview of the signal. The auto TiePie engineering (NL).
setup function ensures a proper setup of Koperslagersstraat 37.8601 VVL SNEEK
the time base, the trigger levels and the The Netherlands
input sensitivities. Tel: +31 515 415 416: Fax +31 515 418 819

Web: http://www.tiepie.n1
J
CIRCLE NO. 109 ON REPLY CARD
 Professional
vide multi s
lexer
Known commercially as the VMUX-8x1, Emil Vladkov's multiplexer

selects one out of eight video sources and can be set to cycle round the

inputs. Controlled via simple RS232 commands, and relatively easy to

implement, the multiplexer can be used at home, or stacked for use in

studio and cable TV applications.

.r
Technical Specifications his video multiplexer has eight buffer to drive 75f1 loads directly.
Video input inputs and one output. Having Switching time is minimised and
Video type composite AC coupled, back porch extended features, it is aversa- transients are suppressed via the cir-
at ground tile device for abroad spectrum of cuit consisting of POT I,R26 and C28 ,
Impedance >200ki.1. unterminated applications. connected to the VNs_ input of the IC.
Number of inputs 8
Ideveloped the multiplexer for stu- The analogue input voltage must
Level 1V pk-pk nominal
dio use, so its performance and the never be more negative than the volt-
+1.5 V to 0.5 V
reliability conform to professional age on this pin. Resistor R26 provides
standards. This does not limit the use the necessary protection.
Video output
of the device for non-professional use Resistor network R9,R10 provides
Number of outputs 1
by enthusiasts and hobbyists though. the necessary amplification (x2) to
Impedance 752 AC coupled
It is also low cost and reasonably drive a75L1 load through the 75f1 out-
Frequency response <±0.5dB to 50MHz 3dB bandwidth
110MHz
easy to implement. put impedance.
Gain 1±0.05 dB
For example, the system can be Inputs of the multiplexer are high
Differential phase <0.03 used in home surveillance systems or impedance —at nearly 270k.f2 —due to
Differential gain <0.04°0 for routeing video sources in home biasing resistors R1.8. As aresult, the
Tilt <0.1% - AC coupled mode entertainment systems. Of course all input signals can be relayed to other
useful features of the VMUX-8x l devices, such as RF-modulators. In
Crosstalk <-66dB worst case @ 4.43MHz become notable in the studio envi- this case the video multiplexer will
<-77dB typ. la 4.43MHz ronment, where I use the system not load the 75(.2line, but will multi-
S/N - inc hum >70dB unweighted wideband described as acarousel for selecting plex the input signals.
>76dB unweighted to 10MHz from 48 cable channels on a6-input Of course if no external device is
Feedthrough <-63dB @ 10MHz multi-image system. connected daisy-chained after the
Switching period for multiplexer, external 75n loads have
circular mode 0.2s to 54min 36s Circuit details to be connected to the transit outputs,
Delay in stack for Figure 1, the multiplexer's complete shown as Transit video outputs on Fig.
circular mode 0.1s to 54min 35.9s circuit diagram, shows that the heart 2, of the multiplexer to match the
Interface Serial RS-232, 9600 baud »of the device is /C 1 — a MAX440 video signal.
eight-into-one video multiplexer. The video signal is AC-coupled to
This device incorporates an output the multiplexer IC, so the DC voltages

772 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 BROADCAST

Fig. 1. Complete
circuit of the eight-
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 o o o o input video
multiplexer system.
• • • •
Note that the inputs
o are high impedance.
The idea is that each
input has two
sockets associated
with it. If extra
equipment needs to
be fed by the
> z
incoming video
8 8 8 8 8 8 signal, the second
socket is used for
.
2

1
daisy-chaining. If the
OECd
eeJ-) video is only feeding
the multiplexer, the
0, second socket is
fitted with a7.5S1

•A)
2M Mel terminator.

5§ •
—)H>
9
e 8r:'188328E1

1 • •
îî

e •cc cc
cc OE OE cc
•
•

s.eeev;f2 .r)
•• 04
e à •
•

e
••

&& z?
ZZ
zre"
1E
71

•--
e
• ••

8 3 8
5
à e
2

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 773

BROADCAST

Video inputs
Mains
Fuse
switch

O 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
O 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

RS232 RS232 .) Multiplexer

y
Fig. 2. Back and front panels of the to master to slave output
Transit video outputs
author's multiplexer. The transit
outputs connect to the video inputs. It
is best to connect them together on the
VMUX-8x1 o
PCB though to reduce the chance of
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 •
reflection problems.
o

Input 1 Input 8 PSU on

LED LED LED

present on the video lines are blocked. output of IC I can be enabled or dis- eprom can be a 24CO2 or similar
The AC coupling is performed by abled via P3.2. When P3.2 is high the device with 256 bytes of storage.
capacitors C1. 9.Of course if DC-cou- device is enabled. Address lines AO, Al and A2 of
pling is essential for the success of the All digital control lines are latched EEPROM IC 7 are normally used in
design, these capacitors can be shunt- in the internal registers of the multi- systems where many memories share
ed or omitted. plexer IC on the rising edge of the the same serial bus. As, in this case,
latch input. This input is connected to only one EEPROM is used, all
Microcontroller functions P3.7 of the microcontroller. address inputs are tied low.
An AT89C2051 8-bit microcontroller. The level/edge input of the Lines P1.2 and P1.3 of the micro-
/C2. controls the multiplexing system. MAX440 has to be tied low to enable controller form the serial bus, which
This device device has 2K of flash edge-triggered, rather than level-con- has serial clock and serial data lines
memory, where the program code for trolled. latching. designated SCL and SDA respective-
the system is stored. The multiplexer system has afeature ly. The protocol of the serial bus is
Through lines P3.3. P3.4 and P3.5. that stores a start-up configuration. generated in software.
tied to the address inputs of the multi- This determines which connection
plexer. the microcontroller selects becomes immediately active after Synchronising switching
which input is connected to the output power is applied to the device. This The proposed implementation of the
of / CI.The output amplifier of the information has to be nonvolatile, so it multiplexer has no sync. input capa-
system has an enable function, so the is stored in the EEPROM. /C 7.This bility, which means that switching

2 3

Inputs 41-48 Screen ogo of TV

VMUX-8x1 No 6
6

5
Inputs 33-40
VMUX-8x1 No 5
Cable network

Inputs 25-32
VMUX-8x1 No 4
Fig. 3. Application
Zandar MVG6
example for stacking
multiplexers. The Inputs 17-24
Zandar unit is a VMUX-8x1 No 3
commercial device that
syncs all the video
sources so that there's Inputs 9-16
no switching flicker. It VMUX-8x1 No 2
does this using frame Control PC
buffers — but amuch
more cost effective Inputs 1-8 Serial control
VMUX-8x1 No 1
idea from the author is for the multiplexe
described in the main Transit to respective
text. channel modulators <

774 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 BROADCAST

occurs not exactly on the vertical sync If the vertical sync. capability is a active connection is not vital for the
pulse of the video signal. This was not must, than the problem can be easily design, it can be extremely helpful in
aproblem in the case of my multi- solved if the analogue comparator debugging and use in studio environ-
image display system, where six video inputs of the microcontroller, AIN1 on ment. This visual indication is accom-
multiplexers are used, Fig. 3. P1.1 and AINO on P1.0, are used. One plished by LEDs L13 1_ 8.

The PCI-card of the six-input multi- of them can be tied to ground and the I used 5mm yellow flat surface
image system from Zandar other can monitor the video signal, so LEDs. These connect through current-
Technologies that Iuse resynchro- if anegative-going sync. pulse with limiting resistors R13.20 to the outputs
nises all inputs through internal elastic the right duration is detected in soft- of the address decoder /C6,which is a
store buffers. As aresult, little or no ware, the switching can be performed 74HC138.
switching transients are visible in the synchronously to this event. One connection is assigned to each
display. Although avisual indication of the LED. If the output amplifier is dis-
abled, all LEDs are turned off. The
status of the LEDs is controlled
through lines P1.4 to P-1.7 of the
microcontroller.

Controlling the system

The multiplexer system is controlled
entirely via aPC through ASCII-com-
mands on aWindows GUI interface. Figs 4a/b). PCB
An asynchronous serial RS-232 con- layout and
nection is formed by the lines P3.0 component placings.
and P3.1 of the microcontroller, which The design can be
become RXD and TXD respectively. implemented on a
The micro has a build-in asyn- single-sided board,
chronous serial interface. Settings for greatly reducing the
the serial connection are: no parity, amount of work
9600bit/s, 8data bits, 1stop bit, i.e., involved to repeat
N,9600,8, I. Levels required for prop- the design.

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 775

BROADCAST

Li.t. I. ((impiety objec t«Me fa the Iideo multiple et mi( roc ontroller. !ntrut t,on br prograttunini.; the controller (an he
downloaded from Atmel's web site as aPDF file.

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:1004100022783 OB6532C0886442808B6432408B6D0

776 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 BROADCAST

er RS232 operation are generated by connectors on the back panel of the of microcontrollers.
the /C3 interface chip. enclosure. The master is female and If you don't have such aprogram-
the slave male. mer then visit the Atmel web-site and
Stacking multiplexers download the pdf-file with instruc-
As mentioned earlier, the system can Code for the on-board micro tions how to build one.
be used on its own, or stacked, as in The object code for the on-board The proposed code fits exactly in
Fig. 3. The stacking ability needs a microcontroller 89C205 Iis presented the 2K flash memory of the device,
special arrangement for the RS-232 in List 1. This code is loaded into the but if you want to modify and extend
ports. 2Kbyte flash of the microcontroller it, then the use of adevice with more
Receive line RXD connects to P2 on with aprogrammer for Atmel's series memory on board will be necessary
the female DB9 D-type connector. It
performs the connection to the PC or
to the master device. This line List 2. The multiplexer is designed to respond to these commands, sent over an RS232 link at 9600
receives commands from the control- baud. Each command is terminated with acarriage return only - no line feed.
ling device or PC. The command is Command Description
then decoded, changed -or not -and swi Connects i/p 1to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
retransmitted through the TXD line to SW2 Connects i/p 2to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
the next slave device, P1 male on the SW3 Connects i/p 3to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
DB9 D-type connector. SW4 Connects i/p 4to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
Because of the analogue nature of SW5 Connects i/p 5to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
the processed signals, alinear power SW6 Connects i/p 6to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
supply is used in the VMUX-8x1. It SW7 Connects i/p 7to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
consists of a mains transformer. SW8 Connects i/p 8to the VMUX-8x1 o/p
bridge diodes D1_4 and linear regula-
tors /C4 and /C5.These regulators pro- SW1D Hbyte lLbyteI Switch i/p 1to o/p with delay, inserted before. The delay is given in 50ms
vide the +5V and -5V, necessary for increments. HByte and LByte are ASCII-expressed bytes in hexadecimal
the video matrix and the logic circuits. form. So you can enter SW1D0F8B, where OF8B is the hex expression of
C25_30 are power supply HF blocking the delay in 50ms increments.
capacitors.
The indication for the power - on SW2 D IHbytel LByte Switch i/p 2to o/p with delay, inserted before.
state of the whole device is accom- SW3 D IHbyte ILByte Switch i/p 3to o/p with delay, inserted before.
plished by the LED LD9.Iused a SW4 D IHbyte ILByte Switch i/p 4to o/p with delay, inserted before.
5mm red flat surface type, with R27 SW5D abyt e ILByte Switch i/p 5to o/p with delay, inserted before.
providing current limiting. SW 6D IHbyte ILByte Switch i/p 6to o/p with delay, inserted before.
SW7D IHbyte ILByte Switch i/p 7to o/p with delay, inserted before.
Circuit board SW8D IHbyte ILByte Switch i/p 8to o/p with delay, inserted before.
Iused the single-sided printed circuit SW1S Stores the connection i/p 1-o/p as StartUp
board with the layout shown on Fig. SW2 S Stores the connection i/p 2-o/p as StartUp
4a). Figure 4b) shows the component SW3 S Stores the connection i/p 3-o/p as StartUp
side, with the jumper-wires shown as SW4 S Stores the connection i/p 4-o/p as StartUp
thick lines. SW5 S Stores the connection i/p 5-o/p as Startup
All LEDs are combined on the con- SW6 S Stores the connection i/p 6- o/p as Startup
nector, P3 because they are mounted SW7 S Stores the connection i/p 7- o/p as StartUp
on the front panel. A ribbon cable'can SW8 S Stores the connection i/p 8- o/p as StartUp
be used to connect them to the PCB. SWOFF Disables the output amplifier of the VMUX-8x1
I used a dual 9V/330mA mains SWOFFS Disabled output is the StartUp configuration
transformer. It is mounted on the
PCB. The video inputs and output on cswIEI El PerH lPerid Synchronous Circular Switching Command. Switches from begin input (B is
the board connect to the rear panel- a number between 1and 8) till end input (E is a number between 1and 8,
mounted BNC-type connectors via but greater than B) with wrap-around. The interval between switching
short pieces of coax cable. events is given in PerH (high byte -2ASCII symbols, representing the hex
representation of the byte) and PerL (low byte).
Mechanical considerations
My prototype is in aI9in I RU enclo- DCSW 1E1 PerH IPerL IDe 1H IDelL I Delayed Circular Switching Command. Switches from begin
sure. Irecommend that you use a input (B is anumber between 1and 8) till end input (E is a number between
metal case that is properly grounded. 1and 8, but greater than B) with wrap-around. The interval between
The indicator LEDs are flat-surface switching events is given in PerH (high byte -2ASCII symbols,
5mm types mounted in the same plane representing the hexadecimal representation of the byte) and PerL (low
as the front panel. BNC-type connec- byte). The switching command SW1D... is retransmitted to the next
tors are used for the eight video stacked multiplexer after adelay, given in DelH (high byte - 2ASCII
inputs, for the eight transit video out- symbols) and DelL (low byte).
puts and for the multiplexed output.
Each transit output connects direct-
scsw I
B/E/PerH/PerL/ Saves the Synchronous Circular Switching Command as the Startup-
ly to the corresponding video input
command of the system.
internally. I recommend that you
make the connection not on the rear
side of the back panel, but on the mul- SDCSW BIElpermiPerL DelH IDel L /Saves the Delayed Circular Switching Command as the

tiplexer's PCB, to avoid transmission StartUp-command of the system.

line problems.
Iput the master and slave D-type

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 777

BROADCAST

Fig. 5. When anumber of

multiplexers are stacked, the Io VMUX-8x1 No 6 $
RS232 ports need to be daisy
chained.

®0111 e lo VMUX-8x1 No 5

KU o 'o\ 10 VMUX-8x1 No 4 S

e e Ii VMUX-8x1 No 3 $

®\ e . VMUX-8x1 No 2 $

® o\ Io o\ Io VMUX-8x1 No 1 $

Such adevice is the 89C4051 with • Writes and reads the serial EEP- have used 6devices in amulti-image
4Kbyte flash memory. ROM of the system, where the system. They are numbered 1to 6.
The code has the following func- start-up-configuration is stored. Multiplexer No 1is the master of
tions in the system: After power-up loads the start-up the carousel system and is connected
configuration from the EEPROM. to the PC to accept configuration
• Performs all necessary initialisa- All commands stored in the EEP- information. The slave-output of No 1
tions of the system components; ROM are backed up several times connects to the master input of the
• Receives commands from the host- in the memory for increased relia- next slave device No 2.
device — aPC or master-VMUX- bility. In the same manner device No 2
8xl-system —decodes and executes • Retransmits immediately, or with a connects to device No 3 and so on.
them; delay, the received commands to Theoretically there is no limit to the
• Generates the specified delays for the next stacked device. number of devices that can be stacked,
circular switching and stacked but the delays in the serial transmis-
switching with delay, discussed Controlling the system sion of the commands between
later; Ihave produced agraphical user inter- devices have to be taken into account
• Addresses and loads the MAX440 face for the controlling the multiplex- if the number of stacked multiplexers
video switch with data; er, running under Windows '95. is too big.
• Turns on and off the LEDs con- For those of you who prefer to write
forming to the specified configura- your own software, the ASCII-com- Operating in circular mode
tion; mands that the multiplexer responds to The circular mode of operation is an
are given in List 2. These commands interesting feature of the multiplexer.
can be entered from aterminal emu- It allows you to switch automatically
Software options lating program running on the PC. between the input channels.
All commands end with acarriage The start and end input channel for
For acopy ot the object code as atext attachment, return —not with carriage return plus this mode is specified in the command
e-mail Jackie Lowe at [email protected] with line feed — so take care not to enter or through the GUI interface. The
the subject heading 'Multiplexer software please'. both in the command line. only restriction is that the end channel
A copy of the Windows GUI and object code in has to be greater than the start chan-
software form plus the Protel PCB file is available for How does stacking work? nel.
f9 inclusive. If we receive alarge number of Stacking allows multiple multiplexers You can specify channel three as the
requests, we may have to send this software to you to be connected together in a serial first and channel six as the last, for
by post rather than e-mail. The source code plus manner. example. The switching is performed
GUI and PCB file is available for f25 fully inclusive. The multiplexers can be controlled with aswitching period, specified in
For payment, send apostal order or cheque from one PC, or from the first multi- the direct command, or through the
payable to Reed Business Information, or send your plexer, running in circular mode. In Windows application software.
credit card type, number, expiry date, card holder's this mode, the inputs are sequentially After the last channel is reached, the
address and atelephone number. switched to the output with aswitch- mode wraps around to the start chan-
Mark your order with the words Video Multiplexer ing period specified by the user of the nel —in the case of the above example
and send it by fax on 0208 652 8111, via e-mail to system. from input six to input three.
the address above, or to Jackie Lowe, Electronics To configure the system to accept There is another mode of circular
World Editorial, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, stackable commands, the devices have operation, namely circular mode with
Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS. to be daisy chained through standard delay. In the first circular mode, the
serial cables as depicted on Fig. 5. I command for switching the corre-

778 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 BROADCAST

sponding channel is transmitted from video sources are used as inputs to the
the master-device to all slave devices, multiplexers. They are routed via Further information
so that all slaves perform circular eight video outputs on the rear panel
MAXIM MAX440/MAX441 high-speed video
switching synchronous to the master- of the multiplexer to the respective
multiplexer/amplifier data sheet, Rev. 1; 7/95,
device. channel modulators of the cable sys-
www.maxim-ic.com.
In delayed mode, aswitching com- tem
Atmel 8-bit microcontroller with 2Kbyte flash,
mand with delay is transmitted to all It is assumed that the modulators
AT89C2051 Data Sheet, www.atmel.com.
slaves. The process is illustrated in represent a 75n load, because the
Atmel 2-wire serial EEPROM AT24CO2, data sheet,
Fig. 6. multiplexer does not terminate the
www.atmel.com.
The master multiplexer performs the video sources, as mentioned earlier.
Atmel application note, 'Interfacing AT24CXX with
switching with aperiod Every group of video sources con-
AT89CX051 Microcontrollers', www.atmel.com.
every switching event in the master, a nected to amultiplexer is displayed on
Zandar Technologies Omni Video Series Multi-Video
command 'SWnD...', as detailed in afixed window on the output signal of
Window Display System MVG6, www.zandar.com.
the command list, is transmitted to the the card. A possible configuration of
first connected slave. the six video windows on the screen,
The slave multiplexer receives and representing the output of the system
decodes the command and waits the is shown on Fig. 3too. then press the corresponding button,
time, Tdelar specified in it, before per- The number of the window corre- 'Load' or 'Save StartUp' in the field,
forming the switching event for itself. sponds to the number of the multi- to enable the selected configuration.
On the switching event for the first plexer. The arrow shows the sequen- All stacked multiplexers are affected
slave the delayed switching command tial change effect in the pictures of the by the manual mode performing iden-
is retransmitted to the second slave, windows if the circular mode of oper- tically.
and so on. ation with delay is implemented, as
As you may have noticed from the shown in Fig. 6. 'Load' — 2. This command button
diagram, an interesting effect is creat- In synchronous mode, all windows lets you load the selected configura-
ed in this mode of operation. The cir- are changed simultaneously. All the tion to the device.
cular mode of switching is shifted for parameters of the single windows —
every following slave device with the position on the screen, dimensions, 'Save StartUp' — 3. This command
step Tdday .This can be used to create etc., —and the text and appearance of button saves the selected connection
interesting visual effects when the the logo of the cable TV provider (or as aStartUp one.
multiplexer system is applied in multi- organisation) are configured through
image carousel systems. the application software of the MVG6 'Disable' —4. The disable option dis-
system and are not subject to our dis- connects —i.e. disables —the output of
Creating interesting effects cussion. the multiplexer. The 'Load' button has
The configuration used for my to be pressed to activate the com-
carousel multi-image system is shown Graphical user interface mand.
in Fig. 3. The multiplexers connect My Windows 95/98 application lets
through serial cables and the master you control the system from afriend- 'Circular Mode' —5. Configures the
device is connected to the control PC. ly graphical environment. Fig. 7. I two modes — circular mode (syn-
The same PC is used as ahost for a have given the control elements a chronous for all stacked devices) and
multi-image PCI card known as the number to aid this explanation. circular mode with delay.
Zandar MVG6. This has six inputs so
there are six multiplexers in the stack. Configuration fleld — 1. 'Manual 'Direct' — 6. Contains the command
Video output from the card is Switch' lets you control the system buttons for the synchronous switching
applied to an RF modulator that feeds manually. This means that you should (the same for all multiplexers) in cir-
the cable network. Altogether, 48 select the appropriate connection and cular mode.

Device 4—slave

ci

Device 3—slave

d
e
Fig. 6. When using
Device 2—slave multiple, stacked
multiplexers in
delayed mode, a
Device 1 switching command
Master, performs is transmitted to each
switching slave sequentially
with adelay between
Input n Input n+2 Input n+4 each transmit.
Input n+1 Input n+3

D represents aswitching event

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 779

BROADCAST

greater by at least 0.1 seconds.

with Delay' —7. This field contains
the corresponding buttons for the cir- `to Input' — 10. Valid values for the
cular mode of operation with delay. start channel for circular mode are 1
There is a'Delay' text box in this field. to 7and for the end channel 2 to 8,
With it, you can specify the necessary but the end channel has always to be
delay in seconds, inserted between greater in number than the start chan-
retransmission of the commands in the nel.
stack of devices. Fig. 6. The valid
range of values for the delay are 0.1 Preview — 11. The preview area
seconds to the switching period minus shows six stacked multiplexers, every
0.1 seconds. one with eight yellow LEDs, repre-
senting the active channel.
'Preview —8'. The 'Direct' and 'with
Delay' subfields contain aPreview' The user interface has the following
button. The function of this button is menus:
to activate asimulation of the work of
the stacked devices with the given • 'Communications' — the user can
parameters. select the COM-port of the PC,
The simulation is performed on the connected to the system. The soft-
graphical representation of six multi- ware supports COM1 to COM4.
plexers —shown in area 11 on Fig. 7—
and is switched off by pressing the • 'Lock' —the application software is Fig. 8. Photos of the author's stacked
same button asecond time. The pre- locked and unlocked with this multiplexers.
view does not affect the work of the menu. When locked, the user can
multiplexers connected to the control change parameters and perform essary changes can be made in the
PC. It is intended to give the user the previews, but can not download the source code.
possibility to optimise the system selected configuration to the target
parameters. device. So an accidental switching • SysTray' —the application is min-
and possible errors and program imised as an icon in the system
Switching period —9. The switching drops are prevented. tray and can be activated every
period in seconds can be entered by time the need arises. The source
the user in the associated text box. • 'Language' —the application soft- code for this option is created by
Valid values are in the range 0.2 to ware supports 2 languages — E. Spencer
3276.0 seconds, but the selected value English and my native language, ([email protected]) and is
is always limited by the delay value Bulgarian. Of course if another for- public domain.
from the lower side, which has to be eign language is desired, the nec-
• 'About' —Gives information about
;Video MuItiplexet System VMUX-8x1 the current version of the software.

In summary
Manual Switch Circular Mode My six VMUX-8x1 multiplexers are
10
shown in Fig. 8. Idesigned the system
Rotate switching from Input r1 ". tolrp.d 5
to perform well when working 24-
Input 1
hours a day, 7 days a week. This
Switching period sec
means that the hardware is reliable
Input 2...j Direct with Delay and the code for the microcontroller is
7 well thought over to avoid locking and
Synchronous switching Delay f".77 -
à 1 sec
errors. In some cases it is written with
Input 3
Preview Preview redundancy to account for every unex-
pected situation.
Load Load The video multiplexer presented
MUX output
here has been in uninterrupted use
Save StartUp Save StartUp
since December 1999 by the greatest
Bulgarian cable TV provider 'EVRO-
o o o COM' — which caters for 500 000
0 000 0 0000
households —and it works fine. •
g o o 000000 ilk
Fig. 7. You can write your own basic
routines to control the multiplexer since
it is controlled via simple ASCII
Load I commands down aan RS232 port. The
author went astep further and
Disable Save StartUp I g 00000000 produced aGUI, whose screen
presentation is shown here. The
numbers in red are applied to aid the
description in the main text.

ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 Eating
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 £11.99
Available exclusively from
Electronics World

Amazing music
21 tracks -72 minutes of
recordings made between
1900 and 1929. These
electronically derived
reproductions are no worse
than -and in many cases
better than -reproductions of
early 78rev/min recordings -
some are stunning...

All tracks on this CD were recorded

Pandora's drums
on DAT from cylinders produced in
the early 1900s. Considering the age
of the cylinders, and the recording
techniques available at the time, these
Unique and atmospheric music recorded tracks are of remarkable quality,
having been carefully replayed using
modern electronic technology by
in the early 1900s — the days before 78s. historian Joe Pengelly.

Use this coupon to order your copy of Track

Pandora's drums 1 Washington Post March. Band, 1909
2 :.3ood Old Summertime. The American Quartet 1904
Please send me CD(s) at £11.99 each 3 '-irriage Bells. Bells & xylophone duet, Burckhardt & Daab
Including VAT plus £1.50 carriage per order UK,
with orchestra, 1913
or £3.00 overseas for which Ienclose:
4. The Volunteer Organist. Peter Dawson, 1913
Cheque J 5. Dialogue For Three, Flute. Oboe and Clarinet, 1913
6. The Toymaker's Dream. Foxtrot, vocal. B.A. Rolfe and his
Credit card details Ui tick as appropriate orchestra, 1929
7 As ISat Upon My Dear Old Mother's Knee Will Oakland, 1913
Name
8 Light As A Feathe. Bells solo, Charles Daab with orchestra,
Address 1912
9 On Her Pic-Pic-Piccolo Billy Williams, 1913
10 Polka Des English's. Artist unknown, 1900
11 Somebody's Coming To My House Walter Van Brunt. 1913
Phone number 12 Bonny Scotland Medley. Xylophone solo, Charles Daab with
orchestra, 1914
Total amount
13 Doin' the Raccool Billy Murray, 1929
Make cheques payable to Reed Business Information Group. 14 Luce Mia! Francesco Daddi, 1913
Or. please debit my credit card. 15 The Olio Minstrel. 2nd part. 1913
16 Peg 0' My Heart, Walter Van Brunt, 1913
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17 Auf Dem Mississippi. Johann Strauss orchestra, 1913
Card No
18 I'm Looking For A Sweetheart And IThink YOU II Do Ada
Expiry date
Jones & Billy Murray, 1913
Please mail this coupon to Electronics World, together with payment.
19 Intermezzp Violin solo, Stroud Haxton. 1910
Alternatively fax credit card details with order on 0181 652 8111. You can
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this order to Pandora's drums. Electronics World. Quadrant House. The 21 All Alone, Ada Jones, 1911
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J Total playing time 72.09

21 tracks - 72 minutes of music
Published by Electronics World. All recordings reproduced by Joe Pengelly
One-stage receivers
D
irect conversion, zero-IF, even Single-stage RF board is just one inch square.
,iiperhomodyne —call it what you will By keeping the transmit and receive circuits
the single-stage RF transceiver receivers have a switched off when not in use, standby time of a
architecture is flavour of the month. It has mobile phone can reach astaggering six weeks.
already appeared in set-top boxes and global
number of advantages STMicroelectronics has begun using direct
positioning system (GPS) handsets, and is over their more conversion in its set-top box and GPS chips.
starting to be designed into other devices such From ST's point of view, the main problem
as mobile phones. complex sisters, area is phase noise. "We have to take care with
Any wireless product, particularly battery conventional the phase noise of the PLL," says Thierry
powered ones, can benefit from direct Abraham, applications lab manager for satellite
conversion. Among the first products to do so superheterodyne and terrestrial at ST. "This is the most critical
was the humble pager. A traditional point."
superheterodyne receiver's filters would have
receivers and they save Perhaps ST's great strength is that it can
been the biggest components in terms of both on costs. Richard ball produce the receiver in CMOS rather than
size and cost in the small device. BiCMOS. It has now started integrating the
Direct conversion receivers use quadrature finds out if zero-IF is receiver with other parts of the tuner.
mixing to go straight to baseband. The best for wireless. Its next generation set-top box chips will
superheterodyne receiver converts the RF to integrate the receiver, tuner and demodulator
one or more intermediate frequencies. for digital video broadcasting. This brings its
The major disadvantage of the superhet is that Devices as leakage of the voltage-controlled own set of problems, notably ensuring there is
amixer and filters are needed at each stage, oscillator signal into the antenna. Because the adequate isolation between the various blocks
increasing power consumption, component VCO output is the same as the carrier, this can in the chip.
count and hence cost. affect nearby handsets. The firm solved it by LS! Logic, Mitel and Philips are among other
"Lots of applications have used using adifferent frequency, around I350MHz, firms switching to direct conversion.
superheterodyne and it's well understood, but it and dividing it or multiplying it to reach the All three are keen to take astake in the digital
carries this extra filter and mixer," says Doug required 900 or I800MHz at the mixer. TV market, whether in set-top boxes, integrated
Grant, director of business development for RF The problem of DC offset also affects the digital TVs, or indeed both.
and wireless systems at Analog Devices. mobile-phone chip set. One solution is to AC "We have azero-IF tuner chip for satellite
Direct conversion, with just one mixer, results couple the baseband signal, but this does not which has been successfully deployed," says
in fewer filters and other discrete components. work when the signal has DC components, as in Kenroy Francis, director of digital TV
In fact in some applications, the whole receiver GSM. marketing at LS!. "What we're doing now is
can be implemented on asingle chip. Part of Analog Devices' solution is to carry refining that even more by making it even more
Overall up to 50 components could be lost out some clever processing of the baseband highly integrated."
from atypical mobile-phone design. This could signal to remove the effects of the DC offset. Mitel Semiconductor has asingle chip tuner
result in cost savings beyond that just due to Analog Devices has now completed a for satellite TV using direct conversion.
component count reduction. A single-chip on a reference design that integrates acomplete "A lot of manufacturers are talking about it [a
motherboard is much cheaper than anetwork GSM module on asingle sided board half the single chip], but not many are delivering the
interface module or the tin can assemblies often size of acredit card. For data-only GPRS required phase noise and linearity," says Paul
seen today. It also reduces the effort required by applications, such as in aPDA or PC Card with Fellows, marketing manager for digital TV
board layout engineers —RF is the devil's own no keyboard and display interface, atwo sided technology.
work when it comes to PCB design.
Bill of materials cost could be reduced by $3
Cut down
to $4. It doesn't sound like much, but over a Conventional Receiver (Superheterodyne)
architecture...
few hundred million phones it adds up. Removed by direct conversion receiver
These diagrams ivi

Despite its advantages, direct conversion has

some problems, including lif noise, time
show asimplified
version of Analog
L GSM BPF BPF

varying DC offsets, self mixing of strong Ceramic Ceramic

Devices' direct
signals, and arequirement for good anti-
aliasing filters. Such issues, though, have not
conversion L.i
OCS —
BPF

Ceramic
BPF

Ceramic
architecture for
stopped the major semiconductor manufacturers
mobile phones
from embracing direct conversion.
compared to the PLL
Analog Devices is one of the first firms to use
superheterodyne
the architecture in mobile phones with its
circuit. A
Othello chip set. Two devices implement the
substantial amount Direct Conversion Receiver (Superhomodyne)
direct conversion architecture and demodulator.
of circuitry and
"We wanted to get the radio back onto a GSM BPF
external
Moore's Law type of curve for cost reduction SAW
components are
and integration," says Grant. BPF
saved —more than Dcs

"Direct conversion's been around for along SAW

offsetting the extra
time. This is the first time it's been applied to
complexity of direct
more complex modulation schemes." This
conversion. PLL
includes tri -band mobile phones.
One of the problems encountered by Analog

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

Better buffers II
In this second article looking at Feedback-pair operation
One can regard the feedback pair as aCCEF that has had
complementary compound emitter its negative feedback reduced by the voltage divider
R1—R 2.The voltage gain is then approximately given by,
followers, Dave Kimber discusses short cuts
R, +R, R
(2)
for analysing the complementary feedback gain =
R,
=1 +
R2

pair —including methods for determining However, the input transistor Tri now has anon-negligible
resistance in its emitter circuit, formed by R1and R2 in
distortion. parallel. This reduces transconductance; it is necessary to
explore whether or not this reduction is significant.
Sometimes the feedback pair appears in the modified
form shown in Fig. 4. Voltage gain determines the ratio of

II
nlast month's article,' Ilooked at the complementary R1and R2 while the DC conditions determine the effective
compound emitter follower, as in Fig. 1, and found that resistance seen at the collector of Tr2.If these two factors
it can provide better performance than aplain emitter remain the same, then higher values for R1and R2 will be
follower provided that the value of R is chosen correctly. needed than for the simpler circuit of Fig. 3.
The critical factor is the transconductance, which varies Transistor Tr semitter thus sees ahigher resistance and
with current as shown in Fig. 2. Having chosen aquiescent so transconductance will be lower. The result will probably
current that is enough to supply the peak signal current, be higher distortion. This form of the circuit may have
then R can be found from, advantages if the feedback network is modified to include
some frequency dependence. Otherwise it seems inferior to
R — 25 x /32 the simpler circuit. Let's stay with Fig. 3.
(1)
Ir2

Evaluating feedback pair performance

Although f3 2 is apoorly controlled parameter, this does not The feedback pair has the same three operating regions as
matter too much because in this region the transconduc- the CCEF. These regions —low, medium and high-current,
tance is only changing slowly with current. were discussed last month.
A variant of the complementary compound emitter One major difference is that in the low-current region —
follower, or CCEF, can provide some voltage gain, Fig. 3. where Tr2 is not conducting —the circuit degenerates into
David P Kimber B.Sc. This is known as the complementary feedback pair. an attenuated emitter follower. As aresult, it is even more
important to avoid this region.

78-1 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 ANALOGUE DESIGN

In the other two regions, the transconductance of Tr iis

reduced by the parallel combination of R1and R2 causing vcc
Fig. 1. The complementary compound
emitter degeneration. The position and size of the regions, Tr2 emitter follower can provide better
in terms of current, will be nearly the same as for the
Tr, performance than aplain emitter
CCEF because these are determined by what is happening
follower —provided that the value of R
in the base circuit of Tr2 and this has not changed. A minor
is chosen correctly.
difference is that Tr icurrent does not directly contribute to
the output.
So,

1,-1(min) = 600
R I...A\
‘"`", (3)
Fig. 2. When working
and,
out the performance of a
25 xfi complementary
(4)
= (mA) compound emitter
follower, the critical
factor is
Operation in the medium-current region
transconductance,
In this region, the transconductance is that of Tr, multi-
which varies with
plied by the voltage gain of the circuit around Tr i.Current
current.
through Tr iwill be only slightly higher than the low-
medium transition current. Current
First find Tr i'i collector-circuit resistance Ram) and its
emitter circuit resistance ReT,i ).
Fig. 3. The complementary feedback
Ram) =
1+ I
r pair is avariant of the
Ir2(.,- It) complementary compound emitter
follower that provides adegree of
25 voltage gain.
R(TA) = (600 )+ RIIIR2

Transconductance is now,
RC( Trl I Fig. 4. Modified complementary
g„, =40 xir,x— (nA/V)
g
(5) feedback pair. This circuit may
RelTrl
have advantages if the feedback
Here, RillR 2 is the parallel combination of R1and R2.This
network is modified to include
resistance will almost always be much larger than R/24 so
frequency dependence, but
some simplification in the transconductance equation can otherwise it appears inferior to
be carried out by making, its simpler counterpart.

RaTrI) =
1+
1c2(on-k) g 2„,A,=40 x2 =120 (mA/V)
R./T.11
Re(TrI) =R1II R2 This is much lower than for asimilar CCEF, which would
have ag„, of I464mAN.

g„, =40 x x R 1+ ilc2h (nA/v) (6) Evaluating distortion. To work out the signal distortion,
R,I1R,
assume a2V output —i.e. IV input —which will cause the
The transconductance rises linearly at first, then levels off current to swing from 0.59mA to 3.4ImA,
as the current approaches the medium-high transition. g (,
)„, =43mA/V

Design example gm.(3.41mA) = 174MAN

As for the CCEF design example in the previous article, I Second-harmonic distortion, from g,,„ is,
will take R as 1 Ica and assume that/3 2is 240. Then 4. 1( „
d„)

is 0.6mA, and 4. 2( „,h) is 6.0mA. Also assume that =

4 (g„,, +g)
RI=R 2=11d2, i.e. avoltage gain of approximately 2, and
that /c2 is 2mA. Distortion of the circuit is,
Quiescent output voltage is now 4.6V and an input bias 0.15 0.15
of around 3.2V is needed. Resistance RillR 2is 500a Also, = feedback factor = (-1x 120 x 2) — 0.125%
R/24 is 41.7f2 so the simplification in equation (6) gives an
2
error of about 8%, which is acceptable.
1000 Here the feedback factor consists of the negative feedback
Rr T
rII= =750 division, namely 1/2, the g,„ of 120mA/V and the output
1+ — resistance of 2k.Q.
6 The distortion is higher than for an emitter follower
=1000111000 =500 producing the same signal as you will see from the
previous article. It is also much higher than that of a
so now, CCEF. This is mainly because of the lower transconduc-

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 785

ANALOGUE DESIGN

tance, but there is also afactor of 2from the reduced

negative feedback. b==
24
High-current region
c=25xAx
i
R,
The transconductance in this region comes from the r2
transconductance of Tri plus its emitter degeneration multi-
plied by the current gain of Tr2.As for the CCEF, you need Differentiating denom gives,
to include acorrection for the signal current stolen from Tr2
c
base by R. -—
R2
1000 +1 which will be zero when,
=1
32x R + '21 " ) (
inivv)
c2 (7)
24

As before, assume that RIIIR 2will be sufficiently large that

this will dominate transconductance of Tr i.Then,
R. 11600 x x (9)
/32 (mAN)
=
(8) So for
x + J the above example, where RI=R 2=11(11)32=240 and / c2 =2mA
1, 2
I

you will find that the optimum value for R is 61(.11. Given this
where RIIIR 2is now in kilo-ohms. This looks quite different optimum value for R. the denominator simplifies slightly:

=a+ox•7
from equation (6) for the medium current region, but they are
denom =a+bR +—
c
in fact equivalent so either can be used. Equation (8) shows
that at high currents, the transconductance will approach an
asymptote of /3 2/R IIR 2. Tc

,3 (1.,
Is R really necessary?

_x_2xR,„„,
Initially, it seemed as though the complementary feedback

e
=a+2x
pair could be considered as avariant of the CCEF. Now it is
clear that there is asignificant difference between the two. 25 /32
For the CCEF, adding Rboosts transconductance in the
24 I
r, 24 Ic2

middle current region by increasing the current in Tri; this

more than compensates for the loading effect of R. For the Now transconductance is 213mA/V -almost double the
feedback pair Tr itransconductance is dominated by RIIIR 2, figure when R was lk.Q. Note that you still have to slog
so R appears to simply add loading and so reduce overall g,„ through the full messy version when calculating g„, for other
at lower currents. Can we simply get rid of R? currents - for example at signal peaks -because equation 10
The answer is, probably not! This is because the simplifying only applies when equation 9is true, i.e. the quiescent state.
assumption that the g„, of Tr iis dominated by RillR2 is only
true when Tr ihas sufficient current. This only occurs when Has the distortion figure changed?
either R is present, and not too large, or 82 is quite small. It is now possible to recalculate the distortion of the example
So what is an optimum value for R? To find out, rewrite circuit with R at 6kfl instead of lk.a.
equation (7) in away that makes its dependence on R
explicit: 2
4011-A) = 25 x 4° - 1mA
6000
25 xS2 =119mA/V
a_ ]
[
x R1000 =247mA/V
- +MR, r2
Distortion (2nd, from g„,)= 0.087
Distortion (circuit)= 0.041%
This is about athird of the previous value, so optimising R
x1000 +((f+ RillR2)41+2•-*52Lfl-)) has been worthwhile. The improvement comes from ahigher
24 Rx I transconductance, and less variation with current.
If R is removed altogether then the distortion becomes
0.22%, which is worse than the figure for the sub-optimal
=132 x1000+ value of R=1 W.

((lt,IIR2+ 25x/31+ R + 25xAxR,I1R2) A rule of thumb

24x/, 2 24 Rx/c, As for the CCEF, the best value for Rdepends on/32which is
poorly controlled. But the variation of transconductance with
For maximum g„,, you need to minimise the messy denomi- R is quite shallow in this region.
nator i.e. we need to minimise, If R is chosen for acentral value ofj32,then afactor of two
in either direction should not hurt too much. Provided the
denom =a+bR+ —
c value of R is near enough correct, then this will still be better
than leaving it out altogether.
where, Equation 9suggests that it might be possible to find a
25 x/32 simple 'rule of thumb' formula for R that will be good
a=RIIIR2+ 24 )( enough for most non-critical applications. For asmall-signal
transistor, beta is usually somewhere in the range 100-500,
so assume avalue of 200.

786 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 ANALOGUE DESIGN

Quiescent output voltage will be around 5V, so /, ,is R voltage gain

(12)
5/(R i+R,). You can now put these values into equation 9 transconductance
-taking care with the units!
So for the example circuit, with R optimal at 6k(.2,
R = 600 x200 R Ix R2 + 5000 2
R, + R, R, + R2
R""' = 213 = 9.412

= ift00 x200 x R xR This is not too bad, but one well-respected textbook gives
5000 an example feedback pair with an output impedance of
soon! This arose partly from ahigher voltage gain of 10.
= Vrel x xR,
but mainly from arather low value of 620S-2for R which is
but NI(R ixR,) is the geometric mean of the two resistor slightly worse in transconductance terms than omitting R
values. For small ratios, which are likely here, we can altogether.
approximate the geometric mean as 0.8 times the arith- In athird article. Iwill be looking at using apair of
metic mean. So: CCEF as aClass B output stage. •

R -f2À
- x0.8 x +
2 (11) In last month's article, the figure 2400 in equation 15 should
have read 24 000. Also, there was asmall error in Fig. 2.
2x(R, +R,)
The emitter of the Tri should have been wired as in Fig. 3of
So for the example circuit, this gives avalue of 41S2 for R. this article. Apologies.
which is quite close to the correct value of 6k12.

Output impedance
Although the complementary feedback pair provides
voltage gain, you have seen that its transconductance, and
hence open-loop gain, is much lower than for asimilar Reference
CCEF. This results in ahigher output impedance. which is I. Better buffers,' Part I-Introduction and Class A. Electronics
further increased by the lower overall negative feedback. World, September 2000, p.725.

How to order
PC Interfacing and
(PC Interfacing and data acquistion) data acquistion
-1 Ienclose acheque/bank draft for £ A practical guide to programming for
(payable to Reed Business Information) data acquisition and measurement -
must-have info in just the right amount of

Please charge my credit/charge card depth for engineers who are not
programming specialists. This book
J Mastercard J American Express J Visa _1 Diners Club
offers acomplete guide to the
Credit Card No: Expiry Date: programming and interfacing
techniques involved in data collection
and the subsequent measurement and
control systems using an IBM
Signature of Cardholder compatible PC. It is an essential guide
for electronic engineers and technicians involved in measurement and
Cardholder's statement address: (please use capitals) instrumentation, DA&C programmers and students aiming to gain aworking
knowledge of the industrial applications of computer interfacing.
Name
Contents: Preface; The PC as aplatform for data acquisition; Software
considerations; Sensors and interfacing; Sampling, noise and filtering; The
Address
interrupt system; Data transfer; Parallel busses; Serial communications;
Scaling and linearization; Basic control techniques; Example projects;
Appendix A: Adaptor installation reference; Appendix B: Character codes;
Appendix C. References; Index.
Readership: Electronic engineers/technicians using PCs for measurement and
instrumentation applications (process control, testing etc.) Data acquisition
Post Code Tel: and control programmers in industry. PC interfacing -university and advanced
hobbyist projects.
Price: UK £32.00 Europe £33.50 ROW £35.00

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD

 lie
15-

411 tip
... 1.- it ' 4 e . . s
. • 44 II •
▪ . illb •
. 4 li e s •

•
•

e • nitre.

Virtual System Modelling

Build It In Cyberspace
www.labcenter.co.uk
7
CIRCLE NO. 113 ON REPLY CARD

Develop and test complete micro-controller designs without

building a physical prototype. PROTEUS VSM simulates the
CPU and any additional electronics used in your designs. And it
does so in real time. *
• CPU models for PIC and 8051 and series
8051 CALCULATOR
micro-controllers available now. 68HC11
comming soon. More CPU models under
development. See website for latest info.
• Interactive device models include LCD
displays, RS232 terminal, universal keypad
plus a range of switches, buttons, pots,
LEDs, 7 segment displays and much more.
• Extensive debugging facilities including EllE1(11313
register and memory contents, breakpoints CZLIE1131:1=
and single step modes. DODO C!
• Source level debugging supported for MOB
selected development tools.
• Integrated 'make' utility -compile and
simulate with one keystroke.
• Over 4000 standard SPICE models included.
Fully compatible with manufacturers' SPICE models.
• DLL interfaces provided for application specific models.
• Based on SPICE3F5 mixed mode circuit simulator.
• CPU and interactive device models are sold separately -
build up your VSM system in affordable stages.
• ARES Lite PCB Layout also available.

abcenLJen *E g PROTEUS VSM can simulate an 8051 clocked at 12MHz on a300MHz Pentium Il

Write, phone or fax for your free demo CD -or email [email protected].
Electronics Tel. 01756 753440. Fax: 01756 752857. 53-55 Main St, Grassington. BD23 5AA.
 I*YATA PRODUCTS
Please quote Electronics World when seeking further information

Power amplifier 4Mbyte flash solid state disk Async interface

evaluation and analysis
for CDMA software. It evaluates network drive (SDD), which emulates a analyser
Agilent Technologies has problems, performs network standard flash disk drive DB Broadcast has introduced
announced that Samsung quality audits, validates the (FDD), providing away to the B051 battery-powered
Electronics has selected a performance of new cells supply power and disk capacity handheld device that analyses
version of its single-band within aGSM network and to PC/104 bus products. The DVB asynchronous serial inter-
dual-mode power-amplifier compares competitive UPS function suits remote face (AS!) transport streams. It
module for its SCH-850 CDMA networks. For vehicle battery-operated systems with provides real-time indications
and AMPS phone. This pocket mounting —trains, buses, taxis, its CPU controlled and on the state of the ASI data
phone will serve US markets vans and so on —the Roam data automatic shutdown for battery link, and carries out basic
through service provider acquisition hardware that forms discharge protection. It is aDC checks on the DVB 270Mbyte
AirTouch. The amplifier part of the package uploads to DC converter with 30W ASI transport stream. It mea-
module helps the phone achieve data to acentralised database, output capability. It is for sures 157 by 70 by 210mm and
abattery life of up to 130hr on which can be accessed from a embedded vehicle and remote weighs lkg.
standby and 4.7hr of talk using control centre by multiple battery operated systems. DB Broadcast
the 1600mAh battery. Samsung users. Up to three networks can Temperature ratige is —20 to Tel 01353 661117
will also use acommercially be logged simultaneously. +70°C. Power supply output is
available Agilent module, the Fresh field Communication +5 and ±I2V. SSD seek time is
Wire-to-board
QCPM-9801 dual-band, Tel: 0208 408 8110 less than 1ms and efficiency is
up to 85 per cent, claims the
SM connectors
dual-mode power-amplifier, in
its soon-to-be-introduced supplier. It has a16 to 30V DC Flint has introduced two 2.0mm
PC/104 power supply
SCH-8500 CDMA flip phone. It input range, low quiescent pitch surface-mount connectors
provides two power amplifiers with flash current and measures 95 by from JST. Crimp and ¡DC
in one package. The Micronix PV-5124 power 90mm. models are available for top and
Agilent Technologies supply module from Micro Micro Technic side-entry headers, with both
Tel: 00 49 6441 92 460 Technic has either a0, 2or Tel: 00 45 66 15 3000 receptacles being compatible

Intelligent GSM
network tool
Autonomy —an intelligent
GSM network performance and
optimisation tool, which
eliminates the need for skilled
personnel in the field —has
been introduced by Freshfield
Communications. It lets
network operators remotely
access network performance
from asubscriber's viewpoint
through acentral data storage
system incorporating user data

Fibre-optic chip-set multiplexes 16 independent 11/E1

Semtech has announced afibre-optic access operates over twin fibre cables or asingle
chip-set that can multiplex up to 16 fibre cable with WDM. The chip-set
independent T1 or El serial data channels comprises the ACS4110 mixed-signal device
over afibre-optic cable. The ACS411 has an that provides 16-channel mux and demux
aggregate bandwidth up to 13, E3 and 0C-1 logic, clock and data recovery and two
rates (51.84Mbit/s) on asingle channel ACS9020 analogue transceivers, which
reaching up to 90km without repeaters. It is include atransmitter with laser and LED
for long-haul broadband access applications drivers and aPIN receiver with aTIA and
in cellular phone networks when base-station post amplifier.
transceivers, controllers and switching centres Semtech
may be at any distance from each other. It Tel: 01592 773520

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 789

NEW PRODUCT
Please quote Electronics World when seeking further information

Rail-to rail quad

op-amp
Maxim has introduced the
Max4403 quad, rail-to-rail
op-amp in a 14-pin SOIC or
TSSOP package. This device
consumes 320pA supply current
per amplifier, while achieving
an 800kHz gain-bandwidth
product. Operating from a2.5 to
5.5V supply, it is suitable for
portable and battery-powered
applications. The output archi-
tecture achieves an open-loop
with either header type. The mounted into athrough-hole gain of 110dB and can drive a
PH crimp style has top or side-
Fibre optic connector
PCB, reinforced by four metal 21d1 load to within 55mV of
entry connections with two to latches on the cover. The cover Amphenol has introduced both supply rails. Total harmon-
14 circuits respectively. It is prevents static discharge and hermaphrodite fibre-optic ic distortion is 0.009 per cent
7.5mm high and 4.5mm wide. provides mechanical connectors for harsh and it is unity-gain stable with
Wire-strip holding length is protection. The single piece, environments. Hermaphrodite capacitive loads up to 400pF.
2.6mm. Crimp contacts are for moulded body has an integral, coupling allows for daisy Temperature range is —40 to
32 to 24 AWG wire, rated at double-action blade switch. chaining, which eliminates the +125°C.
100V, 2A AC or DC for 24 The normally open switch need for polarising the Maxim Integrated Products
AWG. Connector housings are detects insertion and extraction assemblies and the use of Tel .0118 930 3388
made from heat-resistant resin of the smartcard and has a in-line adapters. Markets
compatible with reflow 2.5pm wiping action for self ,include military, energy,
soldering. The solder side of cleaning. Insertion and marine, rail, and oil and gas Frequency
the header has aretention extraction forces are 7and exploration and mining. converters
mechanism to prevent floating 5.3N respectively. It meets Amphenol From Magnus Power are three
during soldering. IS07816 and GSM1111. Tel: 01227 77320 microprocessor-controlled
Flint Distribution Copper alloy contacts are frequency converters, the
Tel: 01530 510333 plated with gold over nickel in LP300, LP600 and LP ¡000,
the contact area and the with outputs of 300, 600 and
maximum contact resistance is 1000VA respectively. Each of
Smartcard connector
less than 200ma Automotive these single-phase output units
For automotive and consumer applications include dashboard has its output frequency
applications, the VO2 GSM telephones, GPS variable from 45 to 440Hz in
smartcard connector from FCI equipment, ignition securit) IHz steps. Output voltage is
has aheight of 3.2mm, electronic road tolls and variable from zero to maximum
including astainless steel tachographs. It operates from in two ranges, usually 0to
cover. The connector accepts —20 to +70°C. I35V and 0to 270V, with
cards with thicknesses from FCI output current capability
0.68 to 0.84mm and can be Tel. 01582 814800 doubled on the lower of these
ranges. The output is aclean,
Smart label identification conditioned pure sinewave.
There is automatic selection of
RFID Components has introduced the Discovery kit for input voltage. The output is
prototyping and evaluating smart label RFID identification
systems based on Texas Instruments' Tag-It smart label
technology. The kit lets users evaluate performance for
baggage handling, product and parcel tracking, and
warehouse and logistics tracking. Other applications
include plastic access control cards, brand protection for
high value products vulnerable to counterfeiting, container
tracking and tracking important files or documents in
finance, medical and legal offices. The kit comprises aTag-
It Series 6000 reader, housed antenna, smart label inlays,
power supply, serial PC communications cable, Navigator
software and manuals. With the software and PC controlled by one multi-turn
connection, users can read and write data to the label. The knob and two pushbuttons.
13.56MHz inlays can be embedded into flexible labels These are operated with atwo-
compatible with print-on-demand thermal printers. The line alphanumeric display. The
transponders can be read electronically without any line of chosen output is
sight at any orientation and inside packaging. Multiple microprocessor-stored when the
labels can be read simultaneously. converter is shut down so the
RFD Components setting is immediately available
Tel: 01234 840102 the next time it is switched on.

ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 From
Professional PCB Layout for Windows at £97

Computer Store Prices!!

Fe! Ieol 01'117 HAtil
cao
PCB Design: Steinpu.peb
•:. l!c— . _..-., or h
Easy-PC For Windows ---- \TP-.•.rin, _. -e th
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Version 3.0 of this outstanding product is the • -, o -

le_re:
te 1111
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=4
latest evolution of one of the most popular LI. ,-4 :à-...
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graphical user interface, it is also one of the immIlfe L%im-mmt-it-.-iikiiiiiiim
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easiest to learn and use. imfb....• Hu i,hipiiiiitiPiPmilums
With full manufacturing outputs using Gerber,
'mini
Windows printers, N.C. Drill and pen plotters it
is one of the most complete systems for the
casual to the professional user.
Run multisheet Schematics, PCB layouts and
library manager all at the same time in the
same interface. Switching between each is
simply case-of selecting the window with the
mouse without running a new program. Number One Systems
Now with our new autorouter option. Call 01684 773662 or Fax 01684 773664
Runs under Windows 95/98/NTT" & Win2000
Email [email protected]

For a free demo disk, visit our web site www.numberone.com

Number One Systems. Oak Lane.Bredon. Tewkesbury. Glos. GL20 7LR. UK

ICIRCLE NO 114 ON Rtev CARD

WO feet VVVV fe V V Vt4 Vilfreelifrfet 4 V V4V
. VVVVieVV;e

WATCH SLIDES ON TV
MAKE VIDEOS OF
PPM5 YOUR SLIDES
DIGITISE YOUR
20 PIN DUAL IN LINE
SLIDES
(using a video capture card)
+Vrc
85 -3'V
•
Liesgang diatv automatic slide viewer with built in high quality colour TV camera it has
a composite video output to a phono plug (SCART & BNC adaptors are available) They
are in very good condition with few signs of Use £91.91, vat = £108 00
Board cameras all with 512x582 pixels 8 5mm 1/3 inch sensor and composite video out
All need to be housed in your own enclosure and have fragile exposed surface mount
f parts. They all require a power supply of between 10 and 12v DC 150mA
47MIR size 60x36x27mm with 6 infra red LEDs (gives the same illumination as a small
torch but is not visible to the human eye) £37.00 vat = £43 48
Set 3
10k 30MP size 32x32x14mm spy camera with a fixed focus pin hole lens for hiding behind a
very small hole £35.00 vat = £41.13
40MC size 39x38x27mm camera for 'C mount lens these give a much sharper image
than with the smaller lenses £32.00 4. vat = £37.60
Economy C mount lenses all fixed focus & fixed iris
VSL1220F 12mm F1.6 12x15 degrees viewing angle £15.97 . vat = £18.76

VSL4022F 4mm F1 22 63x47 degrees viewing angle £17.65 vat = £20 74

Mother Board MB1 VSL6022F 6mm F1 22 42x32 degrees viewing angle £19.05 vat = £22.38

VSL8020F 8mm F1 22 32x24 degrees viewing angle £19.90 . vat = £23 38

Better quality C Mount lenses

Consumption 3mA. Fully meets BS5428-9 £26.43 +vat = £31.06
VSL1614F 16mm F1.6 30x24 degrees viewing angle
VWL813M 8mm F1.3 with iris 56x42 degrees viewing angle £77.45 + vat = £91.00

1206 surface mount resistors E12 values 10 ohm to 1M ohm 100 of 1value £1 00 vat
1000 of 1value £5 00 vat
* PPM10 In-Vision PPM and Chart Recorder * Advanced Active ee•
866 battery pack originally intended to be used with an orbitel
Aerial 4kHz-30MHz * Stabilizer frequency shift units for howl mobile telephone it contains 10 16Ah sub C batteries
reduction * Stereo Variable Emphasis Limiter * PPM9, PPM5 (42x22dia the size usually used in cordless screwdrivers etc )
the pack is new and unused and can be broken open quite
hybrid and PPM8 IEC/DIN —50/+6dB drives and easily £7 46+vat = £8 77
movements * Broadcast Monitor Receiver 150kHz-30MHz * Please add 166 + vat = £'1 95 postage & packing per order

SURREY ELECTRONICS LTD JPG ELECTRONICS

The Forge. Lucks Green, Cranleigh GU6 7BG 276-278 Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield. S40 2BH.
Tel 01246 211202 Fax 01246 550959 MastercardNisa/Switch
Telephone: 01483 275997 Fax: 01483 276477
Callers welcome 9:30 a.m .to 5.30 p.m. Monday to Saturday
es4f,, er teeifeeeeef/e'e*
CIRCLE NO.115 ON REPU CARD
7
.1 t1
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
NEW PRODUCT
Please quote Electronics World when seeking further information

If fixed output parameters are mate plug-in interface allows transmissions, chassis or in the
required, for example 115V insertion and removal of the cab. Thermoplastic housing
400Hz, aversion can be daughter card without disrupt- withstands operational knocks
supplied with apreset output. ing I/O ports and associated and they are protected by
Magnus Power cabling. Axial float lets the silicone seals. No special tools
Tel: 01424 853464 connectors self-align inside the are required for installation and
adapter. Mechanical latching there's aclick and visual
provides an isolated connec- alignment indicator for the
WLAN chip-set tion to the daughter card. assembler. All contacts are
Intersil has announced an Doors on each port stay closed rated to I3A and there is the
enhancement to its Prism II when not in use to prevent dust option of two, three, four, six,
wireless LAN chip-set. Called and laser hazards. It is avail- eight or 12 pins. The DT13 and
Prism II.v, the chip-set reduces able with two, four and eight 15 PCB headers mate with
the number of chips from five ports. DT06 plugs for heavy duty
to four and has aUSB interface Molex maximum leakage current of
option in addition to its Tel: 01252 720720 IpA. Built-in Zener diodes pro-
PCMCIA interface. vide active clamping and pro-
Intersil tection respectively. It comes in
Tel: 001 321 729 4928 60V MOSFET for aTO-220AB package and has
automotives temperature clamped voltage
A power MOSFET from ratings from 33 to 43V.
PCB-to-fibre Toshiba with active clamping Toshiba Electronics
connector provides stable operation in Tel: 00 49 211 52960
The blind-mate backplane LC ABS and other safety-critical
connector from Molex joins applications over the automo-
active devices terminated on a tive temperature range. Based Sealed connectors
PCB to fibre-optic components on 60V trench gate process Deutsch's DT sealed connectors
on abackplane. It has an R.I45 technology, the 2SK33Il has are for cable-to-cable
latching interface. The blind- an on-resistance of 15mil and a applications on engines,

Í The Distributor with

20,000 hard-to-find lines
EX STOCK!!!
Semiconductors
We have one of the largest ranges of discrete parts in the
UK, both new and obsolete types and, if we do not have it in
stock, we can usually source it for you.
Call or fax for our latest Semiconductor stock list.

Computer products Single-slot PCI radar input card

We carry in stock everything to make a Personal Computer.
Primagraphics has introduced the Virgo PCI board, asingle-
CPUs — Memory — Motherboards — Cards — Scanners —
slot PCI radar input card for its Metro PC radar acquisition and
Modems — Sound Cards — Speakers — All types of Drives —
display systems. The board allows the connection of various
Cases — PSUs — Monitors etc radar types to astandard PCI workstation. These include ACP,

Components & equipment ARP. Synchro, ASDE-3, parallel, phased array and the US
Navy's Radds radar display and distribution system. The card
Call or fax for our latest Semiconductor stock list. provides video and azimuth processing, including a2D video
Capacitors — Resisitors — Connectors — Potentiometers — amplifier parameter table that compensates for radar
Cables — Batteries — Speakers — Amplifiers — Lamps — characteristics and clutter. It has three input channels and a
Microphones — Fans — Power supplies — Transformers — 32-bit PC interface for output data. Proprietary or non-standard
Buzzers — Sirens — Fuses and Holders — LEDs — LCDs — azimuth formats can be supported via acustom plug-in
Relays — PA Systems — Tools — Test Equipment — etc module. Radar input gain and offset are programmable
functions of range and azimuth. The signal is sampled at
See our web site. Non-trade customers, send £9.80 to 50MHz to 8-bit precision. The samples are mixed with the four
the sales office for acomplete suite of catalogues. thresholded data inputs and remapped to 8-bit by a

EEL
programmable lookup table. The 8-bit data can be sub-sampled
Semiconductor Supplies International Ltd using peak detection to produce auser-specified sampling rate,
or an external clock can be used.
Dawson House. 128 -130 Carshalton Road, Prima graphics
Sutton, Surrey. England. UK. SM1 4TW
Tel: 01763 952222
020-8643 1126 (Sales and Technical Queries)
Fax: 020-8643 3937 (For International use +4420)
e-mail: salese ssi-uk.com Web: ssi-uk.com

792 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 The science lab in a PC
gtj_f_4 Min•1)21

Experiments Ideas for DrDAC1

• flbsbIsISAIIIII
• lbw. Omni. Lse lox«
•AO fb• tom wee tea Output
• Ilesond morebru. Use
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Ourput ida solear cot as
Ternperature
bete WInning •• r
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••••4,L«....177,
II.3

Only £59! External sensors

+VAT pH Microphone
✓ Very low cost
The DrDAQ is a low cost data logger from Pico Technology.
✓ Built in sensors for light, sound (level and
It is supplied ready to use with all cables, software and
waveforms) and temperature
example science experiments.
✓ Use DrDAQ to capture fast signals (eg
sound waveforms)
DrDAQ represents a breakthrough in data logging.
Simply plug DrDAQ into any Windows PC, run the supplied ✓ Outputs for control experiments
software and you are ready to collect and display data. ✓ Supplied with both PicoScope
DrDAQ draws its power from the parallel port, so no batteries (oscilloscope) and PicoLog (data logging)
or power supplies are required. software
_Tel: 01480 396395, Fax: 01480 396296, E:mail: [email protected], Web: www.drdaq.com
CIRCLE NO.116 ON REPLY CARD

Test & Measurement Instruments

et1L•
•The NEW HF -08 Analog to Serial Converter
I it bit resolution

WWAftPCBSPOOL.0014
I Windows and DOS software available
DVIA Scope. Spectrum. Logging

/ 7 ranges .1 25V to +5.0V. -2 5V and +.2 5V

Crystal controlled timing for accurate DSP

Prototype PCBs I Simple to interface to your own software

from your usual manufacturer for a / Low Cost -Just £69.33 ,ncl vat

fraction of the cost 12 bit module coming soon

RF
Instruments
Few Data Logging
& Acquisition

Vv9
EMC Instruments
Equipment Phone 01420 590000
e-mail: [email protected]

Metered bench power supplies

Up to 60V and 6A Handy DMM /Scope
Prices from £127 inc. VAT Counter/Timer
TU Sig. Gen.
£199 inc. VAT
FREE Layout Software
FREE Digital-Multimeter Me • 111111.

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IT
rea
r Orl'ADN

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ro mided
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( IN( II \() II- (1\ KIM) ( IRD
CIRCLE NO.118 ON REPLY CARD
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 793
NEW PRODUCT
Please quote Electronics World when seeking further information

electronic sensor and small VVM that becomes electrically off. Output accuracy for all three
module applications. conductive when subjected to is i2 per cent.
Deutsch Industrial high voltages. This lets the Rohm Electronics
Tel. 01424 852722 device conduct away ESD Tel: 01908 282666
spikes to ground while
remaining electrically
Slot sensors transparent to the lower signal CCD board camera
UZI3 photoelectric slot sensors voltages encountered during A black and white CCD board
from Matsushita come in sizes normal operation. The range camera is available from
down to lO. by 13.4 by 12mm. consists of array modules to fit Premier Electronics. It uses a radio is suitable for voice and
the connector sockets in PCs 0.85cm interline type CCD data transmission in fixed fre-
and peripheral equipment, such solid state image sensor, up to quency or EPM (ECCM) mode.
as printers, router hubs and 437,664 pixels and CCIR or It will operate with Nato and
scanners, with surface-mount EIA interface. Measuring 42 by non-Nato communication stan-
devices for PCB mounting in 42mm, the VPC-4651495 has dards such as Saturn and Secos.
digital communications auto iris outputs and a2:1 Incorporated is arepro-
equipment. The connector interlace scanning system. grammable software radio to
arrays are for use with standard Features include internal and increase flexibility. Changes in
nine, 15, 25, 37 and 50-pin external synchronisation and a waveforms, modulation, inter-
connector sockets and are for horizontal resolution up to 570 faces or frequency bands can be
press-in fitting with no TV lines. Sensitivity is down to done by downloading software
soldering. 0.21ux and signal-to-noise ratio or using already stored soft-
CPS is over 50dB. Full screen BLC ware. The hardware radio mod-
There are 17 contiguration, or Tel: 01252 816192 is provided with an electronic ules have plug-and-play func-
shapes and 29 types including iris, which ranges from 1/50 to tionality. Additional
cabled and connector versions. I/100,000s. It has on-off communication lines of up to
All have two independent Low dropout selectable AGC, weighs 25g four per radio can be set up
transistor outputs for light on or regulators and provides lens options of 2.5 without hardware alignments.
dark on operation and the Three low-dropout voltage to 25mm. A glass lens is fitted. Rohde & Schwarz
response time is 20ps —version regulators from Rohm deliver Options include C-mount, Tel: 01252 811377
specific. stable typical output voltages CS-mount, D-mount, auto-iris,
Matsushita Electric Works down to I.5V and maximum pinhole lens and high or low
Tel. 01424 852722 output currents up to IA from a resolution. Applications are 2.5V micropower
10252 package with built-in from large military operations LDO reference
protection. For hard-disk drives to undercover surveillance. The LTI790 is amicropower,
ESO protectors and DVD equipment, the Premier Electronics 2.5V, SOT-23 series reference
Circuit protection devices using BA25BCOFP and BA 18BCOFP Tel: 01992 634652 with an initial accuracy of
voltage-variable material accept 3V inputs and provide ±0.05 per cent maximum and a
(VVM) to protect electronic stable output voltages of 2.5 and temperature coefficient of
equipment against electrostatic I.8V respectively. The Multiband software lOppreC maximum. The 0.1V
discharge are available from BAO0BCOWFP also accepts a3V radio maximum dropout voltage and
CPS. Made by Littelfuse, the input, but is avariable output The Series 4400 M3SR is a 20V maximum input voltage
Pulseguard range includes version that can be configured to Rohde & Schwarz multiband, lets it be directly powered by
connector array modules and provide stable output voltages multimode and multifunction various supplies from alithium
surface-mount devices. Each between 1.5 and I5V. A switch surface radio for navy, air force ion battery to awall adapter.
device is based on apolymeric lets the device be turned on and and tactical applications. The The 60pA maximum supply

MPEG transport-stream
generator for multimedia
An MPEG transport stream generator from
Yokogawa is for multimedia and digital TV test
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(10/100baseT), so transport-stream files can be
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captured remotely for local analysis.
Yokogawa Martron
Tel: 01494 459200

794 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

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Letters to the editor
In the dark ages of seen as old, difficult to use and
messy, but seen in the light of
reliability
reliability, it could be considered
Comme une bomb&
"It's crashed again!" That phrase equal. Reading about French radios in the February and April issues
is synonymous with PC users all With adrawing board you reminded me of something that has long puzzled me.
over the world. Unstable don't have some unknown force During aFrench lesson in the 1960s, someone was reading a
operating system, incompatible that erases the last 10 minutes of passage in which there was adescription of aradio being turned
hardware leading to lockups, your work when you're not on. It was said that the radio remained silent for some time, and
badly behaved applications, looking, or insists on printing then the sound came on, "comme une bombe".
which crash your system. your drawing with the last page The French master explained that the sound from French radios
The symptom is the same. your mysteriously lost. really did come on like abomb, reaching the set volume instantly.
work comes screeching to ahalt. As for PC based A British-made radio on the other hand would build up gradually
Perhaps designers in alarge instrumentation, when has any when the valves had warmed up.
organisation will have an IT/IS of us had to re-start our Tek Ihave never heard an explanation for this. Was the application
person to sort their problems out. oscilloscopes just when making of the HT somehow delayed until after the valves had warmed up?
The rest of us, on the other hand some important measurement? Hugh Mirams
have to battle on with this Or not been able to turn off a Via e-mail
millstone of unreliability. signal gen without losing or
How is it that we have all been corrupting its settings?
duped into allowing such My signal generators and So on behalf of all electronics such as compilers etc., as there
unreliability back into our labs, scopes have always been 'there' engineers —and probably any PC are plenty of them, but other than
offices and homes? Iremember and worked when Ineeded them. user —lets give the PC industry a that I'd be glad to hear from you.
the early days of electronics If anything, some stopped kick up the pants to get Thanks in anticipation.
being like this. Tube (valve) working due to some component developing and implementing Mike Bull
tellies and hi-fis broke down a failure, which Ican (or can industry wide standards to bring [email protected]
couple of times in their expected have) repaired. the reliability of the PC out of
No such parity with PC based the dark ages.
Everything's relative
lifetime and there was achain of
repair shops to solve the tools. Ido not see achain of PC We need stable, reliable Iread the article 'Special
problems. repair shops that are willing or platforms on which to run our Relativity right or wrong,' from
Now, with the MTBF of able to re-configure my PC and tools —just as reliable as the the September issue with
semiconductor electronics in make it run better —or at all. electronics that we design will astonishment. Imust say that,
excess of the expected life of a Until PC based test equipment do! Now is that asking too before publishing such a
product, and with the production shows such ability to work come much? 'scientific discovery,' it would
techniques employed, there is rain or shine, I'm sticking with Michael Junes be useful to consult aspecialist.
usually no need —and often no my 'blue boxes'. Design Engineer The conclusions emerging from
way —to service aproduct. This This might sound like akick in Advanced Media Design the article are, of course, wrong!
has spelt the death of the the pants for designers of soft Calabasas Unaware readers may be
electronics service industry. This test instruments. Not so. They California trapped by the ingenuity of the
is ashame. It was agreat place also must sigh at the author to discover new laws of
for astart in electronics. unreliability of aplatform that List of software physics. He should have known
Now, as adesign engineer, I has become so prolific. Iam compiling alist of that special theory is asubset of
find the PC has become an Some applications software electronic-engineering software, the general theory, the latter
essential tool. CAD, modelling, houses are keen to support their and would appreciate the being able to explain what he
documentation and product. Labcenter for example assistance of fellow Electronics claims to be nonsense.
programming are all excellent has very good technical support. World readers. If you know of Iwould recommend the author
applications of aPC in the But even that company is battling any software that is applicable to avery nice book, namely, 'The
electronics design process— that against forces it cannot control: electronics design, then Iwould elegant universe,' which may
is, until the next crash or lockup. hardware, operating system/other appreciate hearing from you. bring some light at its relativistic
As Isee it, these are tools. Just badly behaved applications Our intention is to make this speed into his discoveries.
that: tools. A drawing board is corrupting their files. list available via the links Finally, Iwould recommend
section of our company's web- anyone who reflects on these
site. theories to start thinking
Beginners' corner There are plenty of CAD and differently from he/she usually
Although not an engineer with academic qualifications, Iworked PCB packages around, but there thinks for non-relativistic
in the electronics field for around 40 years before retiring, akeen must be some Ihaven't seen yet, experiences.
experimenter and areader of Wireless World since the early 1940s so include them. But Iam more As Einstein said, "Imagination
and its reincarnation, Electronics World, still continuing to enjoy interested in electronics-specific is more important than
its articles. stuff —and especially 'freeware' knowledge." And some other
The current 'Beginners' Corner' articles by the always excellent or 'shareware'. physicist —Ithink Bohr —said
contributor Ian Hickman are awelcome addition to the wide For instance, Irecently found a many years ago that Only afew
spread of contents in the magazine —especially in view of the free program that displayed scientists understand the theory
increasing demand of electronics engineers (July issue). They may serial port traffic live on screen — of relativity.
also possibly attract more younger readers to the magazine. very useful at the time. The published article proves
Today there are few practical electronics magazines available. Please send me the company this latter reflection.
Those of the halcyon fifties and sixties having now mostly URL where the program can be Sorin Stan, Ph.D.
disappeared. obtained. A one line description Philips Optical Storage
Norman Smith of the program function would Optical Recording
Stoke-on-Trent help to sort the data. I'm not too Predevelopment Laboratory
interested in programming tools Eindhoven, The Netherlands

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 799

 LETTERS

Al replies... increase the available feedback all currents up to and in excess of decided that for aClass-AB output
Sorin Stan says that my article has gain. However, Icannot see why their rated maximum continuous stage it is important, since it
"ingenuity", which Itake to mean introducing feedback over the drain current. impacts upon bias stability and
that he cannot find aflaw in the output and voltage amplifier stages This effect is quite evident from probably cross over distortion.
reasoning. should do this. graphs of drain current versus In adesign such as Russell's
He should read Hasselbach & In agiven design, there is a gate-source voltage for various which seems to have no quiescent
Nicklaus (Phys. Rev. A, certain amount of excess gain temperatures.. The curves for current — i.e. Class-B —it would
48,143-51,1993). They list 21 (open-loop gain minus the required higher temperatures are further up seem at first glance to be
different attempted explanations closed-loop gain) that can be used the current axis. unimportant. This would also be
of the Sagnac effect. They say for distortion-reducing feedback. It Unfortunately, Iwas not able to so if BJTs were used.
"this great variety (if not doesn't make adifference how this find data from any manufacturer However, if the device is
disparity) in the derivation of the is applied. It can be in the form of for adevice with part numbers sufficiently heated — for example
Sagnac phase shift constitutes asingle global feedback loop, or ION20 or 10P20*. Data from by running at high power for
one of the several controversies split between two or more nested Thompson for an STMIONB20 extended periods of time in a
that have been surrounding the feedback loops. shows that the threshold voltage — poorly ventilated audiarack at
Sagnac effect". Nested feedback in combination the gate to source voltage for the height of aSydney summer —
Having considered the eight with amodified frequency which the device begins to it is conceivable that the
proposed Special and General response of the network(s) can conduct —does indeed decrease threshold voltage might be
Relativistic explanations, they make adifference if it leads an with increasing temperature. lowered sufficiently for the
conclude, "the classical increase in available feedback gain However the net effect — with output stage to conduct some
kinematical derivation has the —in particular at high frequencies. decreasing transconductance —is quiescent current. Then his
advantage of yielding the correct However, there is no indication not plotted. For clear graphs of amplifier becomes aClass-AB
first order result in avery simple that this is the case in this design. this phenomenon, device data amp, like most audio power
and intuitive way". In addition to the nested from Siliconix or International amps. Ihave neither the time nor
Why should it be necessary to feedback loop, Mr Breden tries to Rectifier is better. the interest to investigate this.
invoke General Relativity to increase the voltage amplifier's Inevitably there is adrain Another point worth mentioning
explain aphenomenon that is input impedance by using a current at which the device is the positive temperature
evident at speeds of 10m/s? That Darlington configuration, as in Fig. exhibits zero temperature coefficient of the power
is like saying that it is necessary to 3, Tr i1.12 .
This would indeed coefficient. For all the VFETs MOSFET's saturated drain
invoke G. R. before we can increase the available excess gain. whose data that Ihave studied, resistance. This is more important
calculate the time of the rolling of However, the input stage is also this current was always in excess when the device is used as a
achild's ball down aslope! loaded by the inner feedback of half the rated maximum saturated switch, but it is also an
The Sagnac phase shift on the network, R12 .13 and C5 .6, which at continuous drain current. Hitachi important factor —along with the
Michelson & Gale test is mid frequencies reduces to made power MOSFETs like the supply voltage —which will
3000000000 000000 times larger approximately R13, i.e. 68k.Q. 2SJ50 and 2SKI35 whose zero determine the maximum output
than calculated by Relativity What is not immediately temperature-coefficient current swing apower amp can deliver
theory. apparent though is that the output was quite low, at about 200mA before clipping.
Einstein wrote to Scledinger, voltage at one end of R13 is in for a7A device. As the device heats up its
"All the other fellows do not look opposite phase to the driving However Hitachi made it quite saturation voltage increases,
from the facts to the theory, but signal at the collector of Tr5.That clear in their application data that which reduces the output of the
from the theory to the facts; they divides the effective value of R13 these were different from D series amplifier. When used as a
cannot extricate themselves from a by the closed-loop gain of the vertical power MOSI-h IS. They saturated switch, the current is
once accepted conceptual net, but output cum voltage amplfier stage, were lateral Sseries types. They largely set by the rest of the
only flop around in it in a negating the advantage of the also exhibited lower gain and circuit. As the device heats up, its
grotesque way." Darlington. higher saturated on resistance. resistance increases, which in turn
We must always give preference In short, there is no evidence The first power MOSFET I will increase its dissipation. So the
to well proven experimental that Mr Breden's topology tried was avertical type. I temperature —and hence the
results. performs any better in the areas he literally got my fingers burnt. resistance —increase.
Al Kelly, Ph.D. addresses than the generic design. Luckily the FET survived and I This is hardly ascenario that can
Dublin Ian Didden suffered no permanent scarring. be described by anegative
Consultant But Idid learn afew lessons temperature coefficient, and if the
Hees Belgium about MOSFETs and believing device has inadequate heat
100W Class-B what Iread. sinking, thermal runaway may
Ifound the article by Russell Icannot accept Russell Breden's Ihave since tried avariation of well occur.
Breden in the June 2000 issue — promotion of "the VFET's the amplified diode circuit, usirig The suggestions that VFETs
'A new 100W Class-B topology,' negative temperature coefficient". aMOSFET instead of aBJT, but are negative temperature-
interesting, but less than Iagree that the gain of VFETs Iwas unimpressed with the coefficient devices, and are
convincing. usually has anegative temperature performance. Isuspect there is therefore inherently thermally
In anutshell, the main problem coefficient, but so does the not good matching between stable, are bunkum. Power
he addresses is the reduced gain threshold voltage. These two devices, even of the same type — MOSFETs are great devices with
at high frequencies, leading to mechanisms compete with each unlike BJTs. some nice properties, but they
less effective feedback and other to produce apositive One might ask if this is really should be used with due design
making it very difficult to reduce temperature coefficient. This important. On reflection, Ihave diligence given to their particular
cross-over-distortion —which of means that for agiven gate source tfiermal behaviour.
course contains many high- voltage, the drain current will Phil Denniss
frequency components. increase as the device temperature 'Sorry, Ishould have spotted Dept. of Plasma Physics
Ican agree with his analysis that increases over most of the this before the article went to University of Sydney
abetter adaptation of the voltage device's operating current range. press. The 10N20 and 10P20 NSW Australia
amplifier stage could improve In fact, some devices, like the are 10A, 200V devices from
matters, because this would IRF632, exhibit this behaviour for Maplin. Ed. More letters on page 825...

800 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 CONTROL & INSTRUMENTATION

Dealing with mains

•
Interference
Joe Carr looks at the problem of interference from the mains,
describing ways to avoid it -and ways to remove it.

0
ver the past several decades with channels A and B, that permitted rect amplifier. So Idecided to build a
I've seen a lot of situations an 'A-B' input to function as pseudo- differential amplifier at the sensor end
where 50/60Hz interference differential. of the cable.
disrupted all manner of circuits and Even though the cable was shielded, Figure 2shows the resultant system.
instruments. It's basically apain. the slight difference in the input ampli- A gain-of-I00 dc differential amplifier,
The best solution, by far, is to pre- fiers produced acommon-mode volt- using aCA3140 operational amplifier,
vent it from occuiring. The usual meth- age that was seen as avalid input sig- was built and installed right at the sen-
ods involve shielding, or using aloca- nal by the recorder. The 50/60Hz fields sor. A single-conductor coaxial cable
tion that is free of 50/60Hz fields. Lots radiated by the building power wiring was run to one of the single-ended
of luck! Have you noticed those lights induced 50/60Hz signals into the sen- amplifier inputs of the recorder. This
you are using to read this article? sor circuit. And with the tiny input sig- eliminated the A-B pseudo-differential
A practical example arose when I nals, any 50/60Hz at all was fatal. The problem. The 50/60Hz completely dis-
was employed as an electronics tech- scientist's tracings were corrupted with appeared.
nician (later as an engineer after Igot 50/60Hz interference. Figure 3 shows the device. The
my degree) at George Washington My first solution was to tell him to Grass FT-3 strain gauge sensor had a
University Medical Centre in buy adifferential amplifier plug-in for Cannon connector on it. Iobtained the
Washington, DC. A physiologist was the recorder. Wrong answer! It seems mate and mounted it on aPomona box
using aWheatstone bridge transducer that research grants for junior scientists that contained the amplifier. A seven-
to measure the contractions of some are not all that generous. He simply pin Amphenol 126-series connector on
muscle or another. didn't have the money to buy the cor- the other end carried DC and grounds —
The output of the sensor was very
tiny. Its sensitivity factor was 5pVN/gf
Long two-wire Differential amplifier
(1gf, or I gram-force is a force of
shielded cable
980dynes). With a 6V battery, and
gram-forces between 0.5 and 2, the Recorder
Sensor
output of the contraction pulses were
from 15pV to 60pV. The bridge had a
differential output, so had to be pro-
cessed in adifferential amplifier. Fig. 1. Original configuration of sensor and amplifier was sensitive to hum.
Figure 1shows the system used. The
two sensor output wires were passed to Single-ended
Differential amplifier Long one-wire
avery long —about 3.5 metres —shield- amplifier
shielded cable
ed two-wire cable, to a differential
input on a strip-chart recorder. That Recorder
Sensor
recorder is shown here as adifferential
amplifier.
Unfortunately, the differential input
was not truly differential. It was —like Fig. 2. My new configuration. Putting atrue differential amplifier at the sensor end removed the problem
an oscilloscope —atwo-channel device, of 60Hz interference.

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 801

CONTROL & INSTRUMENTATION

one each for DC and signal - to the reprint copies of 'our article.' It seems ple F ob — to the gain at the notch fre-
box, and carried signal back to the that he had submitted my words along quency.
recorder. Cost? About $25 in 1975 with about as many of his own to a Assuming equal input signal levels at
bucks. physiology journal 'tech notes' section. both frequencies - which has to be
One humourous aside. Imet the sci- A bit shocked, Itold him that any checked, most signal generators have
entist aday or so later and he asked me second semester electronics technology variable output levels with changes of
for awritten 'technical description' of student at the local community college frequency! - the notch depth can be
the project. OK, so Isent him acouple could do the same. He replied: "Yes, calculated from the output voltages of
paragraphs. He then said he had some- but aphysiologist couldn't... and would the filter at the two different frequen-
thing on the order of five to ten pages have to pay $975 for the correct plug- cies,
on the project. So Iwrote apiece about in amplifier." V
the length of amagazine article that Notch depth =20log (2)
V,
started with the theory of op-amps and If you can't remove it, you'll
ended in my two original paragraphs. have to filter it Twin-T notch filter networks. One of
About ayear later he handed me fifty Unfortunately, it's not always possible the most popular forms of notch filter
to prevent 50/60Hz from occurring. In is the twin-tee filter network, shown in
Fig. 3. Putting the that event, we need to find asolution Fig. 5. It consists of two T-networks,
extra differential involving filtering out the 50/60Hz consisting of Ci/C3/R2 and RI/R 3/C2.
amplifier in a Amphenol 126-senes stuff. Notch depths of -30 to -50dB are rel-
connector
'Pomona' box and If the input signal permits, then a atively easy to obtain with the twin-tee,
mounting the box high-pass or low-pass filter can be assuming proper circuit design and
local to the sensor Pomona box
used. Any signal has harmonics, and component selection. Very good
also helped these must fall within the bandpass of matching and selection of parts makes
Grass FT-3 the filter. For very slow signals, with a it possible to achieve -60dB suppres-
reduce the effects transducer
of interference. maximum frequency content of 20Hz sion.
ITT Cannon or less, then alow-pass filter will suf- The centre notch frequency of the
connector
ficiently attenuate the 50/60Hz signals. network in the generic case is given by,
Similarly, if the signal frequencies are
1 C, +C,
much higher than 50/60Hz, then a F (3)
high-pass unit will be needed. 2,r1C1C2C3RR3
•
You can simplify the expression above
'tz 0dB Notch filters. The usual solution to by adopting aconvention that calls for
e unwanted in-band frequencies is the the following relationships,
1. —3dB
Bw notch filter. The frequency response of
=C3=C
Notch anotch filter is shown in Fig. 4. These
depth RI=R3=R
filters are similar to another class, i.e.
C2=2C
bandstop filters, but the band of rejec-
R2=RI2
tion is very narrow around the centre
frequency, F, If this convention is adopted, then we
FLFCFH Frequency The bandwidth of these filters is the can reduce the frequency equation to,
•
difference between the frequencies at
60Hz 1
the two -3dB points, when the out-of- F= (4)
notch response is the reference OdB 27cRC
Fig. 4. Frequency response of notch filter, whose bandwidth,
BW, is the bit between the -3dB points of the notch. point. These frequencies are FLand F» In these expressions, Fis in hertz, R is
so the bandwidth is FH-FL. in ohms and C is in farads. Be sure to
The 'sharpness' of the notch filter is use the right units when working these
Cl C3

c2
a measure of the narrowness of the problems: 0.001µF is 1x10-9 farads.
Fig. 5. One of the most bandwidth, and is specified by the 'Q' In calculating values, it is usually
popular forms of notch
of the filter. The Q is defined as the prudent to select acapacitor value, and
filter - the twin-tee. ratio of the centre frequency Fe to then calculate the resistance needed.
bandwidth, This is done for two reasons: one is
that there are many more standard
Q. Fc
BW (1) resistance values, and second, poten-
tiometers can be easily used to trim the
For example, anotch filter that is cen- values of resistances, but it is more dif-
tred on 60Hz, and has -6dB points are ficult to use trimmer capacitors.
58 and 62Hz (4Hz bandwidth) has aQ One of the problems of these filters is
of 60/4 or 15. that the depth of the notch is afunction
The notch filter does not remove the of two factors involving these compo-
Simplified expression entire offending signal, but rather sup- nents. First, that they are very close to
CI =C3 =C presses it by alarge amount. The notch the calculated values, and second, that
depth, see again Fig. 4, defines the they be matched closely together. For
02 =C
degree of suppression, and is defined example, a60Hz notch filter was built
R1 = R3 = R
by the ratio of the gain of the circuit at using the 0.15µF and 17 6842 values,
R2 = R/2
an out-of-notch frequency - for exam- the 0.15g capacitors were selected at

802 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 CONTROL & INSTRUMENTATION

random from agroup of adozen or so

'mine-run' capacitors of good quality,
while the resistors were 18kfl, 5%
metal-film types. The notch depth at
60Hz was only 10dB, but at 58Hz it VO
was 48dB. The mismatch caused a
significant shift of notch frequency.
A second filter was built using the
same values. In this case, the 0.15pf
capacitors were selected from about
20 on hand. Precision components are Fig. 6. Active twin-tee
difficult to obtain. notch filter. The box
In order to match them as closely as marked Twin-tee notch
possible, the capacitance of each was filter is simply Fig. 5.
measured using the capacitance tester
function on asub-$100 digital multi-
meter. The order of priority of selec-
tion was to find those that closely
matched each other, and only inci- IC 2
A Twin-tee
dentally how close they come to the IC I notch filter
calculated value. Errors in the mean Vo
capacitance of the selected group can
be trimmed out using apotentiometer R1
in the resistor elements of the twin-tee VIN 1M
network.
When selecting afrequency source, IC 3
choose either awell-calibrated source,
or use afrequency counter to measure Fig. 7. A variable-Q notch filter can be
the frequency. Keep in mind the situ- built by adding afurther op-amp and a
ation described above where only a potentiometer to the circuit of Fig. 6.
2Hz shift produced a38dB difference
in notch depth! Alternatively, use a
6.3V or 12.6V ac filament trans-
former secondary as the signal source better solution is to include the twin- R3
— after making sure that its potential- tee filter in conjunction with one or 499k
ly lethal primary is properly insulated more operational amplifiers.
R1 \AA,
1
and protected. There is one solution in which the
twin-tee network is cascaded with an 499k
Adjustable-frequency notch filters
can be built using the twin-tee idea, optional input buffer amplifier and a
but none of the usual solutions are mandatory output buffer amplifier.
really acceptable. One implementa- Such amplifiers tend to be non-invert-
VI, R2
tion requires three ganged, matched ing op-amp follower circuits. V,
potentiometers or three ganged capac- The purpose of buffer amplifiers is 249k
itors. Unfortunately, in either case, at to isolate the network from the out-
side world. For low-frequency appli- C
least one of the variable sections must
1500p
be of different value from the other cations, the op-amps can be 741,
two, causing atracking problem. You 1458, or similar. For higher-frequen-
might not notice atracking problem cy applications, i.e. those with an
in some circuits, but in a high-Q upper cut-off frequency above 3kHz,
notch filter it can be disastrous. use a non-frequency compensated
device such as the CA-3130 or CA- RA
Active twin-tee notch filters. Active 3140. 124k
frequency selective filters use an A superior circuit is shown in Fig.
active device such as an operational 6. In this circuit, port-C of the twin-
amplifier to implement the filter. In tee network — the common point —
RB
the active filter circuits to follow, the connects to the output terminal of the 124k
'twin-tee' networks are shown as output buffer amplifier. There is also
block diagrams for sake of simplicity, afeedback network consisting of two
///
and are identical to those circuits resistors, R. and acapacitor, Ca The
shown earlier; the ports 'A,"B,' and values of R and C in the twin-tee net- Fig 8. Gyrator notch filter. The 1500pF variable can be made
'C' in the following circuit are the work are found from the equation up of afixed capacitor and atrimmer in parallel.
same as in the previous network. above, while the values of Ra and Ca
The simplest case of atwin-tee filter are found from,
is to simply use it 'as is,' i.e. use the
R.= 2RQ (5)
filter circuits shown above. But the

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 80 3

CONTROL & INSTRUMENTATION

and, from this circuit. also possible to parallel one or more

Another approach to notch filter cir- small capacitors and atrimmer.
c =— (6) cuits is shown in Fig. 8. This circuit is For example, a I 00pF trimmer can
" Q sometimes called the gyrator or active be paralleled with a 1000pF and
Filter design example inductor notch filter (it's also some- 470pF to form the I 500pF capacitance
Design a60Hz notch filter with aQ of times called the virtual inductor notch required. Make sure that you use low-
8. filter). drift, precision capacitors. You can
1. Select atrial value for Cof 0.01g The notch frequency is set by, match them using adigital capacitance
2. Calculate die value of Rfrom the equation: meter.
F= 1
265 39212 (7) Be careful when using any filter to
' .
1R„R,,C„Cb
3
3. Calculate R/2: 265 392/2=132 69612 remove components from awaveform.
4. C1=2C=(2)(0.01uF)=0.02pF Equation 7can be simplified to, If the filter is not ahigh-Q type. then
5. Select too much of the signal might be
Ra:Ra=2QR=(2)(8)(265 39212) — (8) removed. In medical electrocardio-
2irR.31C«,C„
=4.24MS1 graph (ECG) systems the signal has
6. Select If the following conditions are met, components from 0.05 to 100Hz, so
CFC/Q=0.01 pF/8=0.00 1 3µF. R3 R, R, 60Hz is right in the centre of the
(9) range! Oops.
R, +R, 2R
When Fig. 6was built using these val- To make matters worse, the leads
ues in Joe's Basement Lab, using the It is possible to use any one of the ele- have to be connected to the human
twin-tee network the null was close to ments, C„ C,, R„, or Ri„to tune the fil- body, so are unshielded at their very
—48dB deep using components at ter. In most cases, Ca is made variable ends. Interference from 60Hz is
hand. and CI, is alarge value fixed capacitor. almost guaranteed unless care is
A variable-Q control is shown in The 1500pF variable capacitor can taken. But filtering can take out com-
Fig. 7. In this circuit, anon-inverting be made by parallelling all sections of ponents that assist the physician in
follower, /C3, is connected in the athree-section broadcast variable, with making diagnosis, so is only used
feedback loop in place of R„ and Ca . asingle small fixed or trimmer capac- when it is unavoidable. On medical
The Q of the notch is set by the posi- itor. Alternatively, since most applica- ECG amplifiers the filter is usually
tion of the 1 OM potentiometer, tions will require atrimmer rather than switchable so it can be either in or out
Values of Q from 1to 50 are available abig honkin' broadcast variable, it is of the circuit.

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CIRCUIT IDEAS
Fact: most circuit ideas sent to
Electronics World get published
The best circuit ideas are ones that save time or money, or stimulate the thought process. This
includes the odd solution looking for aproblem —provided it has adegree of ingenuity.
Your submissions are ¡udged mainly on their originality and usefulness. Interesting modifications
to existing circuits are strong contenders too —provided that you clearly acknowledge the circuit
you have modified. Never send us anything that you believe has been published before though.
Don't forget to say why you think your idea is worthy.
Clear hand-written notes on paper are aminimum requirement: disks with separate drawing and
text files in apopular form are best —but please label the disk clearly.

Half-duplex data direction indicator

fserial data is to be monitored in transmitted, current flow through R3 of asynchronous demodulator.
Ihalf duplex data transmission will be from A to B. Port A will be Glitches at 'D' caused by
network, it is essential that the data current sourcing, and the receiving propagation delays are filtered out
direction is known before the load will be current sinking. by R7 and C1 with /C 28 buffering
interleaved bi-directional character Resistor R5 provides some the output 'E'. A high-value
strings can be separated. additional load to ensure adequate feedback resistor could be
Where the protocol is not known, current flow through R3 when connected between the output of
or is too complex to enable any driving high-impedance loads such /C 28 and the input on pin 4to
synchronisation characters to be as CMOS gate inputs. When a provide some hysteresis if needed.
detected in real time, one logic 0is being transmitted, then The direction signal can be used
alternative is to determine the data current flow through R3 will from to route the serial data stream to
direction using hardware. The B to A. Port A will be current the appropriate serial channel or to
diagram is acircuit that extracts a sinking and the receiving load will TTL to RS232 converters for
data direction signal, which can be current sourcing, this time monitoring using programs such as
then be used to route the serial data assisted by R4. CardMon, Comwatch or Windows
to the appropriate channels for The converse is true when the Terminal etc.
monitoring. Values of resistors R1 data flow is from I/0 port B to I/0 The principle is equally
to R5 are suitable for operation port A —with R1and R2 applicable to half-duplex RS232
with CMOS/TTL levels, and have contributing to the load. Thus, the and RS422/485 etc., however some
been tested successfully with logic level 'C' from the comparator modification to the values of the
Smart Card (IS07816) serial data indicates the direction of the resistor R1.5 and to the comparator
communications up to 9600 baud. current flow, and when this is supply voltages would be required.
Circuit operation is as follows. XOR'ed with the data level 'B', Alan Kitching
When data direction is from I/O port indicates the direction of the data Middlesbrough
A to 1/0 port B, if alogic 1is being flow. The function is similar to that E6

This circuit determines

whether data passes
from A to Bor 8to A.

806 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

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

About National Instruments

NI4050
National Instruments offers hundreds of software and
The NI 4050 is afull-feature digital muldmeter (DMM) for hand-held and
hardware products for data acquisition and control, data
analysis, and presentation. By utilising industry-standard notebook computers with aType ll PC Card (PCMCIA) slot The NI 4050
computers, our virtual instrument products empower users in a features accurate 51/
2 digit DC voltage, true-nns AC voltage, and resistance

wide variety of industries to easily automate their test, (ohms) measurements. Its size, weight, and low power consumption make it
measurement, and industrial processes at afraction of the cost
ideal for portable measurements and data logging with hand-held and notebook
of traditional approaches.
computers.

Software
Our company is best known for our innovative software • DC Measurements: 20mV to 250V DC; 20mA to 10A
products. The National Instruments charter is to offer a • AC Measurements: 20mV mis to 250V mis; 20mA mis to 10A rms;
software solution for every application, ranging from very
• True rms, 20Hz to 25IcHz
simple to very sophisticated. We also span the needs of users,
• Up to 60 readings/s
from advanced research to development, production, and
service. Our flagship Lab VIEW product, with its • UL Listed
revolutionary, patented graphical programming technology, • 51/
2 Digit Multimeter for PCMCIA

continues to be an industry leader. Additional software

products, such as LabWindows/CVI, Component Works,
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Measure and VirtualBench, are chosen by users who prefer C
Lab VIEW is ahighly
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programming environment
Hardware that combines easy-to-use
Our software products are complemented by our broad
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selection of hardware to connect computers to real-world
the flexibility of apowerful
signals and devices. We manufacture data acquisition
hardware for portable, notebook, desktop, and industrial programming language. It
computers. These products, when combined with our offers an intuitive
software, can directly replace awide variety of traditional environment, tightly
instruments at afraction of the cost. In 1996 we expanded our
integrated with measurement
high-performance E Series product line in PCI, ISA and
hardware, for engineers and
PCMCIA form factors, shipped our first VXI data acquisition
products, and added remote (long-distance) capabilities to our scientists to quickly produce
SCXI signal conditioning and data acquisition product line. solutions for data acquisition,
Our virtual instrumentation vision keeps us at the forefront data analysis, and data
of computer and instrumentation technology. National
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Instruments staff works actively with industry to promote
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• Graphical programming development environment
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'All published circuit ideas that are not eligible for the prizes detailed here
• Full, open network connectivity
will earn their authors ominimum of £35 ond up to £100. • Built-in display and file 110

National Instruments -computer-based measurement and automation

National Instruments, 21 Kingfisher Court, Hambridge Road, Net4bury, Berkshire, RG14 5S1. Tel (01635 523545), Fax (01635) 524395
info.ukerni.com wsvw.ni.com.

807
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 CIRCUIT IDEAS

Simple keyless entry lock

W
here controlled access to aroom or premises is required. a
keyless lock is often the most convenient solution. +12V
Additional keyholders' can be authorised at any time, newly cut
keys being unnecessary, and the key can be easily changed. by S4 -S10 or
S4 -S12 or
reallocating afew wires, should this become necessary.
S4 -S16
The diagram shows one such ascheme, using aten. twelve or
sixteen switch keypad. Where the solenoid-controlled latch release
is 12V DC operated, it can be driven directly by Tr ias shown.
In this case. Tr 'should be aDarlington transistor, such as a
TIP121 fitted with small heatsink. and D Ia 1N4001. Otherwise, RL
can be arelay controlling the latch supply, and Tr iand D Ican be a
BC182 and 1N4148 respectively.
Switches S1. 3can be any three of the contacts of the keypad. To

gain access, it is necessary to press all three simultaneously. This is

likely to foil the unauthorised, as it differs from the usual
arrangement, where aset sequence of presses is required.
Furthermore, pressing any other key at any stage will charge up
C1.This will disable the lock for about acouple of minutes, adding
further security and making unauthorised entry quite impossible in
practice.
(F 10 1
Ben Sullivan
Waterlooville
Hampshire
F10

Ten year inde TABLE OF CONTENTS

new update Applications

Applications by description
Applications by part numbers
Com an addresses
The Electronics World SoftInder runs from
January 1933 to May 19% and contains
references to 1330 articles and BCC circuit ideas
There is aseparate author index with full cross

Hard copies and floppy-disk databases Books

Circuit Ideas
references Reprints can be obtained for all the
articles in this index -see the Information
Information
both available
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Subject Index information about Electronics World see our
Analogue Design websrte at http New* secopy co uk
Audio
Whether as aPC data base or as hard copy, SoftCopy can Aeonics

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Communications
over the past nine years. Components
Computing
Consumer Electronics
The computerised index of Electronics World magazine covers the Control Electronics
Digrtal & DSP Design
nine years from 1988 to 1996, volumes 94 to 102 inclusive and History learc Not, About
_
is available now. It contains almost 2000 references to articles.
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Photo copies of Electronics World articles from b For enquires about photocopies etc please send an sae to
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are available at £2 each, excluding postage.

808 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 CIRCUIT IDEAS

• •
Power supply noise-reduction circuit
periodic radiated and conducted had proved ineffectual circuit. Attenuation of the this error
relectrical noise at aspot frequency Where the power supply period of signal gives reduced deviation of the
can be reduced in power by spreading operation is set by the charging of a power supply switching frequency.
capacitor through afixed resistance, On this circuit 5V power was taken
the spectrum of the noise signal. The
this circuit feeds an error current from the regulated 5V output of the
technique was used on an adapted
power supply circuit with good into the capacitor. The error current power supply switching IC.
changes per power supply cycle. (UC3843 50mA output max.). The
results.
Gate drive from the power supply advantage is the generation of the
This circuit alters the switching
is used to clock apseudo random power on reset signal to the shift
period on aper pulse basis. Due to
its complexity, it may find use as a noise generator formed by ashift register.
final line of defence against register with tapped feedback. The Frank Serrels

£50 Winneri
electrical noise where the addition weighted output of all 8taps is fed Birmingham
to the power supply timing capacitor E7
of further filtering and screening

PSU IC,
UC3843
miele3,,15.0dBm
2MHz - 59.98drn
10.:18 •t11,3@d8 ST 30f
ti 14 :Ft
0:Pk
Gate drive Fig 1. Block diagram of
circuit for reducing
+5V 5V reg
electrical noise from a
1
AT/CT switching power
Shift supply.
Clock
register

-...: ,
8 •1,1
Power-on I
Data reset
Fig. 3. Spectrum of power
supply output, 5V in this '10
instance, circuit disabled. DC
-i.e. 0Hz frequency -is
shown for reference.
CF:1R7L,H7 SP:1MHz R8.308Hz 1.0 I
kHz

eaea WO PART
Fig. 2. Circuit 1.0kEli C. RESET.
Ras USED RS R rustax ELEMENT. TRANSIENT PROTECTION 90

ce.
"

diagram of scheme 5, IN R05

TRON P5u IOR
for reducing 5. 5U TVS

electrical noise from T22111

aswitching power
1.=
ICOI POO
mC154
supply. :•1:;""

512 in,
RO 511
GATE ERIC

RIO

aka
1002 RIM

TRANS/ENT PROTECTION. -1 laK

ROO
-I'-
WM
RIP

OUTPuT
:am
TO P5u TIMING Fig. 4. As Fig. 3,
COPPONENTS
circuit enabled.
• ** 17;:gi

Comparison of results taken with and without the power supply noise re-e q3.142MHz
.0ciBt•
j l
- 69.74dBe
1048- &Dee ST38.3 0:PK
reducer in circuit.
Harmonic Frequency Power Power Change
(kHz) unmodified modified (dBm)
(dBm) (dBm)
76 -57 -65 -8
2 152 -60 -70 -10
3 228 -66 -74 -8
4 304 <-80 <-8
5 380 -67 <-80 -13
6 456 -67 -78 -11
7 532 -68 <-80 -12
8 608 <-80 <-80
684 -70 <-80 -10
760 -69 -79 -10
836 -69 <-80 -11
Re.390Hz UB I
kHz

809
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 CIRCUITS IDEAS

Switch a PC CD -
ROM writer's power supply
This simple 'error-free' switch powers a output. The logic level present on input D front panel, near the main power switch. To
I second SCSI CD-ROM writer only of /C1B control the relay: If SIis pressed use CDRW, keep SIpressed while turning
when needed.It is impossible to change the during switch on, the CD is powered. on the PC until the led lights, The switch is
CD state, on or off, after the system boots. Capacitors C4 and C5 provide supply then released and the CD writer is available
When powering on the PC, the ICs are reset bypass and C3 acts as adebouncer. Because for use.
by asingle pulse provided by C2-R 2 /C18 flip-flop is clocked only when the PC Marco Spada
network. is turned on, the circuit inhibits erroneous Bari
After alittle delay provided by RIand CI, operation. Italy
/CIB is clocked by the rising level of /CIA 's Both SIand D2 are placed on the PC's D100

JP2
JP1 si
RI C5
1D- 100k o CS• 02 100n
2 LED
3

756p
.12V supply OUT
[MVO supply in
12 Volt relay
AIL D1

cl
1N1148
R3 R6
MU C3 7k 1k

9
22n
IC1A 6 IC1B 8 R5
47 g 5
01
D D
EIC517
CLK at( 1k

mien e2
1013 2—_43 4013

4 10

Save wear on your second CD ROM drive with this

circuit, which allows you to select whether or not the
(0100) drive will be powered or not after you switch your PC on.

Extended-range pulse width modulation

Innormal 555 applications, the capacitor the capacitor, but on pin 7of IC I.This allows is used to generate the capacitor voltage, it is
Ivoltage is limited between 1/3 and 2/3 the inverting input of /C2 to remain near possible to use this voltage as areference for
This can create problems when using this IC GND level during C2's discharge-cycle. the potentiometer. Using atransistor makes it
for speed-control using PWM, as in most If the input potentiometer remains higher possible to drive the low impedance of the
cases the speed setting is avoltage level, than 0,6V, the output of /C2 will stay at potentiometer from the control-voltage pin of
between for example OV and 10V. +Vcc. By placing ashort circuit at the place IC Iwithout affecting the voltage level>
It is however possible to create acircuit of DI,the minimum PWM signal disappears Bernard Van den Abeele
which creates an offset voltage between the and the output -remains low during the Evergem
capacitor voltage and the voltage sensed by discharge cycle of C2 Belgium
ICI,thus making it possible to build aPWM As there is ainternal reference in IC Iwhich D29
regulator with the capacitor voltage within
the desired voltage control range.
By inserting RIand R2 between pin 2and +1.
¡V
C2 the capacitor will discharge to alower
voltage level before retriggering
Resistors RIand R2 are not only used to This circuit provides
charge the capacitor; they also create the an extended range of
necessary offset between the real capacitor pulse-width
voltage and the voltage sensed by ICI. modulation when
As the resistors are connected between 6
using a555 timer.
C2 and pin 2, the threshold level isn't
affected. In the circuit drawn the capacitor
starts charging at 1.8V while the discharge
cycle starts at 10V
As it was necessary to generate PWM
with aminimum duty-cycle of 5%, the
capacitor voltage isn't extracted directly at

Tr2
Specifications BC547
108Hz PWAloutput
Duty, minimum 5%
Duty, maximum 89%
Duty cycle at Upi=5V 33%

810
ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000
 CIRCUIT IDEAS

R 111--
1_.
470Q
•-1AAAr-

2 74LS92 4 3 2 +5V
2 A3 A2 Al AO
IC MR1
A
VCCD
5 11 6
MR2 01 AS
16
VCCA
74LS13 10 02 A
IC 2
8
03 — 122p.
10 8 14 _
IC 3 CLKO A
14
12 SP+
14 +5‘,/ CLK1
1 C\> 15
1 SP \ LS
ANA in
>15Q
Cs
VSSD
'c i
+5V +5V 1u ISD 1016A VSSA
C7 +5\/
ANA out e
- 22µ Press my 52,and I
24
PD
speak the throw of
47k 6
R6 the die.
R4 R5 TEST C5 R 7 2k
47k 47k 0.22µ 10k
27
P/R
MIC
si
_CL 3

R3 REF
47k Cs AGC C6
M0.1µ R6 0.22µ
470k

C4 (E20)
2µ2

Speaking die
'one' through 'six'. The frequency of almost eight seconds. Each slot
T his speaking die circuit is
suitable for use by people with of the oscillator is high enough that
it is impossible to predict the count
can thus easily contain anumeral
and slot six also 'bells, whistles and
sight impediments, as it audibly
outputs the result of a'throw' via a at which S2 is closed, and the fanfares' to celebrate agood throw,
small loudspeaker, in the user's resulting word is therefore if desired.
language. effectively randomly chosen. There is no limit to the number of
Squarewave oscillator /C3 (upper) Recording is achieved by times the message can be changed,
drives divide by 12 counter / C2,of speaking into the microphone, M, and the device can thus be modified
which the most significant output is with SIclosed. Releasing the button for other purposes. For example, if
not used, via NAND gate /C3 stops recording. The message is three slots contain 'yes' or 'heads'
(lower). Counter outputs Q0,Q1and recorded at the location defined by and the other 'no' or 'tails', the
Q2 are connected to address lines A4,A5 and A6,which must therefore device is like tossing acoin. The
A4,A5 and A6 of voice chip IC I. be frozen during recording. author's prototype was built in a
Pushing S2 — 'throwing' the die — Addresses can be frozen by pressing box 8cm by 5cm by 3cm, powered
closes the NAND gate, stopping the S2 repeatedly until the counter stops via a78L05 regulator. This in turn
counter and triggering / CIvia C2. at the desired address, keeping S2 can be powered by abattery of a
The speech chip IC Ithen outputs depressed thereafter, to prevent the plug-top mains-powered supply.
the message recorded at the address counter advancing. Heikki Kalliola
at which the counter stopped. Address lines A4, A5 and A6 Helsinki
For use as adie, the messages divide the voice chip memory into Finland
recorded at the six locations are five segments of 1.6s each, and one E20

1us pulse tor

values shown

One microsecond trigger Vc5V

pulse generator 4
100n

he two circuits shown both generate aone

microsecond trigger pulse on the rising edge of
an input clock pulse. The first circuit came from the
'Art of Electronics' and is avery useful little circuit Fig .1. A Simple
adjustable rising-edge
that can use spare logic gates on acircuit.
pulse generator as
The second circuit came from trying to implement
shown in Horowitz, P.,
& Hill, W., (1995): The
Continued over page... Art of Electronics, 2nd
edition, Cambridge
University Press, p557.
M04001
Quad 2i/p NOR

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 811

(D12a)
 CIRCUIT IDEAS

lus pulse for

values shown
the first circuit, but discovering
that twould need an extra chip to
do it. However Inoticed that Ihad
aspare flip-flop and was able to
generate the requisite Ims trigger Vcc=5V
68p
pulse using it. It is the most basic 10k
of circuits, but it may be of use to 14 I 100n
01 Vcc
someone caught in asimilar bind. e

Richard Weir
0-- 1
./1
. 02
via e-mail
D12
Clock1

Resell Clock2
Vcc=5V
Fig. 2. A simple adjustable rising-edge pulse Data1 Reset2
generator constructed from the spare side of
aD-type bistable device, saving the use of an • Set1 Data2
additional chip in atight spot.
Vss Set2

MC1403
(D12b)
Dual D-type

Measuring EHT beam current

M easuring beam current in
electron-beam evaporation
drop across a 112. SW resistor
connected in series with the
Before incorporating the metering
circuit and EHT supply into the host
equipment, sputter coaters and similar secondary of the EHT transformer. equipment, the meter was calibrated
devices presents difficulties, due to This feeds aminiature 1:20 step-up using adummy load. A plot of the
the problems of insulation of panel transformer with adequate insulation. meter reading against the actual load
mounted meters. This circuit Stepped up voltage is rectified, current indicated alinear relationship
represents agood workable solution, filtered and fed to a I mA meter throughout the range. Maximum error
using asmall transformer with good through aseries resistor. Actual at the extreme ends of the range was
insulation. The principle of operation values of R1and R2 can be adjusted to less than ±5%, which was acceptable
of the metering circuit developed by suit the metering range etc. Since the for all applications.
Milman Consultants is shown in the power handled by the transformer is Dr. G Acharya & R Ombase
diagram. so small, its size is dictated by the Pune
EHT load current is sensed before necessary between winding and to- India
rectification by taking the voltage ground insulation. E22

From trigger control module

£50 Winner'
GI KI 62 K2
Beam current
To feedback
metering circuit for • EHT
fl-IT supplies. transformer
19./5W

Snubber
0-200V BY255 (8 in each branch)
230V/50Hz input
to —ve (to evaporation unit
AC mains through filter, bleeder
primary
and arc suppression circuit)

1:20 step-up transformer

with 10kV insulation +ve (to GND of equipment)
R,
4k
Load current
dépendent AC signal
( ,. „ 0-1mA
*Fi =1Mià
o C =0.01µF/1kV
calibrated to RC filter across Aand Bnot shown
indicate
0-500mA FSD
(E22)

812 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

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THE ORIGINAL SURPLUS WONDERLAND! Surplus always I
wanted for cash!
THIS MONTH'S SELECTION FROM OUR VAST EVER CHANGING STOCKS

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2 "disks with manual
/ £24.95
Siemens K4400 64Kb to 140Mb demux analyser £2950 CLAUDE LYONS 100A 240/4151/ 3 phase auto. volt. regs £2900 shipping charges for software is code B

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00110 01110 10 010 00010 011
00110011/fir 010i 00110 ell
00 110 011 10 10010100110 011
00110 01 11010 0101 0110 011
10 0110 01110 10 010110110 01
10 0110 01110 10 0101 '0110 01
100110 01 t>1)01010 1110 011
00110) 11
1001100 11 ,
881I8J 11
281
' 1 1
8e
1
00110011
0011001
88l1P

Z‘,'
«
70

Measuring true power

.r
oday's emphasis on physical due to the heat conducted along the
As circuit miniaturisation increases, size reduction requires similar thermocouple wires is needed. With
knowing the temperature of small reductions in the actual power smaller components this becomes
dissipated in acircuit, if excessive impracticable.
components becomes ever more component temperatures are to be
important, and ever more difficult avoided. With miniature compo- Alternative temperature-mea-
nents, sensible measurement of surement methods
to determine. Cyril Bateman has temperature can prove difficult. One possible method is to estimate
For several years Ihave measured
been searching the Net for component temperatures using
component temperatures using ther-
moctuomic liquid crystals. Ihave used
alternative ways of assessing miniature naked-bead, 0.2mm-wire, this technique with some success,
thermocouples. However even with a using the Redpoint Spectratherm liq-
power dissipation. size 1206 resistor or capacitor, due uids. These cover the temperature
allowance for temperature reduction range 60°C to 115°C. You can find
more details on this technique at the
TO 'Electronics Cooling' site'.
ANTENNA Another technique uses an infrared

O
thermometer to measure surface
temperatures. This method is most
successful for high temperatures and
Ir/ 1/2W
100ku 22it V]
I
low-cost thermometers are readily
51pF +5V available. These however 'view'
much too large an area to be useful
when measuring small components.
VR 1 LEAD-
Extremely small components can
210.! THROUGH

O
be measured using microscope-based
INT 3d B CAP ACI TORS.
infrared measurement methods, but
1nF
5000 INPUT 604!! equipment for such techniques is
FROM P. A. very expensive.
2ki
111W TO NC I
N- Vow
Consequently, while voltage,
1kW current and frequency are the most
51pF 1nF _r OUTPUll
common measurements made when

NC = NO CONNECT 7 Fig. 1. A low cost, easily applied solution for

5052 RF power measurements from 1pW to lkW.

814 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 COMMUNICATIONS

Bugs •ZDNet Fumed Showdown Security tor Home or Enterprise Netscape NCI E;
tie Edit Dew fio Eorivneceror tide
The recent spate of e-mail based virus attacksA leaves the Bookmarks A Nee.: hoschrene/0.56552589155 t5Ñet , j fl,atsRated
impression that other security problems for Internet users bet II

have disappeared. Not so. Default installations of many IiLl

▪ _À
' Hands-On with BM Machrone s
Read
fir t

operating systems/browsers frequently expose your ▪ In 1 I Mach

Prod'.
computer to potential damage. Firewall Fo7741,
Having just completed the assembly of my new Athlon
Showdown:
based machine, Idecided to subject it to apractical
security test. With this computer, Ican access Internet Security for Home or Don't
12M7E=101 \
La!
using either OS/2 or Windows 98SE, so Iconfigured both Download Enterprise
Softwav tbn
operating systems/browsers to ensure Internet security. If you're connected to anything, even Just your fellow e PC
Using Windows 98SE with Netscape 4.72 then IE 5, I for In( employees, you need afirewall Foetal! software LICL
visited the 'Shields Up's for some practical tests. In afew .did, here' comes in two sizes, for indmdual machines and for e51.£
networks VVeie reviewed half adozen of each, and our
seconds my port 139, or NetBios port, was found to be r has the information you need to make p , ro

completely 'open', providing an easy route into my data. an intelligent choice 511
Er.lc
This revealed just how quickly ahacker could verify your Pm used most of the products that our renewers
machine's Internet presence and penetrated its. PIT:7 covered, and Iagree with our mower's comments for
the most part Ido have afew comments of my oivn, of eTh
.,
rye

Fortunately, better results were obtained using OS/2 with

e

course Our Elio' L hQç product, Norton Internet

Netscape4.61. Shields Up reported all ports were correctly Securrty 2003, is easily the most comprehensive eadit
product of the group, and the easiest to use But some ,
closed and my system had not been interrogated. Using the
ifi21

of the other products are notable the things that they do ,

same hardware Ihave also found that OS/2 produces faster that Norton doesn't address or that it addressel
II
Internet download results, than when using Windows 98SE
with either the above browsers. So with this improved
osarânismiaur— eip co sz.
security as well as extra access speed, Iwill continue using Fig. A. Perhaps you cannot ensure your computer ports are properly
OS/2 as my main communication operating system. controlled and safely closed, or you prefer belt and braces. A
Improved security can be attained using a'firewall'. software firewall can significantly enhance your safety -especially
While the traditional hardware approach may not be when you are using apopular operating system.
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Bugs references
One that has received http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/sto-
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lished. Simply measure voltage and True power then is equal to RMS
optimising adesign. Inow find
myself needing to regularly check current. Instantaneous power, which voltage multiplied by RMS current
actual component power levels. is the product of instantaneous multiplied by the cosine phase angle.
voltage and current, however is of As for DC, AC true power is
Power measurement little practical value. Apparent power, fundamentally defined by its heating
With DC only conditions, simply the product of the RMS values of effect. Heat rise measurement is still
voltage and current is more useful, the optimum method where accuracy
measuring voltage and current,
current and resistance or voltage and especially given small phase angles. is important and especially so for
What you really need is true power, very high frequency measurements.
resistance provides accurate answers.
When AC dissipation is involved, which applies to all impedances or AN64-1 from Agilent Technology,
such simple measurements may not phase angles. titled Fundamentals of RF and
True power is the mean value of the microwave power measurements',
suffice.
In aresistive circuit at low frequen- instantaneous power modified by the describes the various techniques
cies, power level is quickly estab- actual voltage/current phase angle. which can be used.

For more information...

1. Find chip temperatures with thermochromic liquid crystals http://www.electronics-cooling. com/resources/EC-
Articles/JAN97/jan97_02.htm
2. Analog Devices Inc http://www.analog.com
3. A Simple Digital Power Meter http://www.warc.org.uk
4. RMS-to-dc converter is accurate and stable http://www.ednmag.corn/reg/1995/091495/ 19 di 4.cfm
5. Make alow-cost benchtop power meter http://www.ednmag.com/DesignIdeas/September 11 , 1998

6. Real Time Power Measurement of aTransistor http://www.elantec.conVAN-7

815
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 COMMUNICATIONS

U4 R3
AN» 201«?
Fig. 2. This self
R4
contained, 5621(0
+Vs C4
portable, true
0.1&F
RMS milliammeter Fe_ X2o REF HI
R5 101(0
GAIN
introduces avery C3
RS — REF LO R8
100F
small voltage
c5
0-200mV 100Ia-z
Cl 45.3(0
RMS COMMON
burden into your 02e
COMMON 0.10e
+4.5VDC
circuit. 10% C7 I.

I
*VS
v1I1 D — R2
ANALOG
1MQ 0.1,4F
INPUT
NC E POWER OUT
LO
DOWN PUT
U3
'
TTEI - ys u2 CAV
ICL7136 3-1,2
e AI3737 DIGIT LIMN IC
4.891c0
-vs

Fig. 3. Self
calibrating for Alternatively, since the impedance RMS voltage is more easily measured developed across the 50S2 termina-
time and of any AC circuit can be expressed in than AC current, you may prefer to tion. Many published circuits rely on
temperature the form IZI=R+jX, then knowing the use V2/R. measurement of voltage developed
induced offsets, value of the 'R' term, true power can One frequent need is to measure across aknown resistance, both for
this true RMS be defined as P=/2xR, where /is the power in ason circuit. For this, you SINI and indeed other impedance
meter can handle RMS value of the current. Since AC need only measure the RMS voltage values.
up to 2V input
and crest factors 1pW to lkW 50S1 power meter
up to 5. In the August issue, Imentioned the
AD8307 logarithmic amplifier from
Analog Devices 2.It can measure
signals from audio frequencies to
500MHz over a92dB range. This IC,
Yen together with five resistors and six
capacitors, can be assembled in a
small, screened enclosure. With the
scaling and components shown, this
circuit measures transmitter power in
a500 system from 1pW to IkW at
frequencies above 10MHz. This
power range represents an input
voltage range from 7.07mV minimum
to 223V maximum, Fig. 1.
49.9(1 mn • Vo A fully worked example power
-Verge--
F meter 3,usable up to the 70cm band,
2490
illustrates this approach. Based on
4980
• 7 two separate building blocks for ease
X2 51 .V,, W I of assembly, its measuring head is
INPUT
AD834
based on this AD8307 logarithmic
q6-1/ ,Ç5 -0
amplifier. The circuit's display unit
41 Y2 -
Wv
uses aPIC I4C000 controller with a
49.911 digital read out.

•-.V1111041.-- Measuring RMS

4
43.90.010 When the signal being measured has
adefined waveshape, such as a
sinewave, almost any AC meter can
49.91(11
be used, but with non-standard
7
waveforms atrue RMS responding
52 xl v. bvi meter should be used.
One such circuit, which uses the
AD834
AD737 to measure the true RMS
VI 52 v, value of AC currents up to high audio
frequencies, can be found in Analog
Devices' AN-268 publication 2.This
loco e lien
-5VÔ
circuit develops avoltage burden of
10mV using a50mn sense resistor to
Z7
1
measure 100mA, Fig. 2.
Fig. 4. Using two very fast multipliers both configured as a'squarer', to measure the true RMS voltage of Key to the above circuits is the
RF signals, up to +15d8m level, in a5011 system. measurement of true RMS voltage or

816 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 COMMUNICATIONS

+V
13
+IN 1IN Vour
14 1k
Vp
4 11 Fig. 5. Described as a
%MSC 'le 11 'low-cost bench
0 6 tILOAD 100k power meter' this
VLOACO
design can measure
GI,
71D true power of signals
+OUT 1OUT
GNO ranging from afew
+V milliwatts to 50W. It
o D3 is easily calibrated
100k
0 0 +V
Rb
Rs
following the
100
200k published instructions.
î
100k

2
VLee. /20

RE F200
R2 IC
I523k

1k

R„• >Rs, 10
3> C 3A
1k 30k1 OPA4234
Rlo
300

11 mV
IC 100 MA

1V
EL4452
•

current. But many commercial differences. Using amultiplier circuit

dedicated RMS to DC converter introduces the possibility of measur-
circuits are severely frequency ing true power in circuits when
limited. Other approaches based on current and voltage phases differ
multiplying chips to first square the significantly. In other words a
input then calculate the mean square multiplier can solve for the expres-
root, can be used. With this approach sion RMS voltage multiplied by
care may be needed to minimise RMS current multiplied by cosine
errors caused by offset voltages, phase angle. This remains valid for
which can change with temperature any phase angle.
and time. For example one could measure the
Sergey Velichko used asample- power output from a100W audio
and-hold auto calibration technique to amplifier by inserting alow-value
eliminate these offset errors, with an resistor, say 0.1i/, in the earth return
MPYI00 X, Y, Z-input of the test load, to sense load current.
This circuit is able to measure AC Voltage developed across the test
load, multiplied by the load current this the transistor current is sensed Fig. 6. With a
signals in the range 0to 2V with
using amultiplier, calculates the true either using acurrent transformer, or bandwidth of
crest factors up to 5. Periodic auto
power dissipated in this load. more simply alow value sense 50MHz, this circuit is
calibration compensates for time and
Since true power is being mea- resistor in its emitter lead. able to monitor the
temperature induced drifts. Fig. 3.
sured, the load can be the usual non- The voltage dropped across the actual power
The AD834 from Analog Devices
inductive resistor or even areactive transistor is scaled down, if neces- dissipated in most
is afour-quadrant multiplier that can
test load, such as amulti-element sary, using aresistive potential power transistor
be used with ±1V full scale differen-
crossover, multiple loudspeaker divider connected between its applications, while
tial inputs and from DC to above
system. collector and emitter. This collector- the transistor is
500MHz 2.Using two AD834 cir-
One worked example 5 demonstrat- emitter voltage is multiplied by the functioning in your
cuits, both configured as a squarer',
ing this technique uses aPGA204 transistor's current, using avoltage design.
together with an AD301 integrator,
produces avery wideband true RMS programmable gain in-amp to sense multiplying IC. With suitable scaling
meter. With such high frequency the load current. A unity-gain op- to account for the current sense
capability, component inductive amp senses the voltage across the resistor and any potential divider
paths must be minimised and an load. These outputs are then multi- used, the output represents the true
effective ground plane is essential. plied in an MPY634 multiplier to power dissipated in the transistor6.
Fig. 4. produce an output, from 10mW to See Fig. 6.
10W per volt, depending on the Having reviewed afew established
PGA204's gain selection, Fig. 5. techniques, my next article examines
True power
Many simple circuits can be used to Using similar techniques it is circuit simplification possible using
measure power levels, assuming possible to measure in real time, the some of the most recent integrated
circuit current and voltage remain in true power dissipated in atransistor circuit developments for power
phase or have acceptably small phase while it is in normal operation. For measurement. •

817
October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD
 The state-variable filter
State-variable filters are a little more com- The state-variable filter
One of the most important forms of
plicated than most, but they make up for basic two pole active filter section is
the state variable filter, or SVF for
their complexity with versatility. As short. This is perhaps alittle
profligate in its use of op-amps,
Ian Hickman shows, the simplest form has requiring three, whereas many other
three outputs -low, band and high-pass - active two-pole filter sections need
only two -or even just one.
and a few extra components give you notch However, the SVF is extremely
versatile, and also, unlike some
and all-pass responses too. other types, it is 'canonic'. This
means that it uses only two

W
hile filters for use at radio pole response. Note that it is frequency-determining RC pairs to
frequencies are generally advisable to buffer the second stage obtain its two pole response.
realised with inductors with aunity gain buffer, for example, The basic SVF provides three
and capacitors, or crystals or surface an op-amp as shown, to prevent it outputs, giving low, band and high-
acoustic wave (SAW) devices, none loading the first. pass responses. With afew extra
of these is very convenient for use at But the attenuation at the corner components it will furnish band-stop
audio frequencies. frequency Fe. is now 6dB. Cascading (notch) and all-pass (phase
Fig. 1. In a) is a A series resistor followed by a N buffered sections to obtain equaliser) responses as well.
simple passive low- shunt capacitor, Fig. la) provides a 6xNdB/octave cut-off in the stop-
pass -i.e. 'top-cur low-pass response with a6dB per band would produce 3NdB The op-amp integrator
-circuit that gives octave roll-off in the stop-band. The attenuation at Fe.. So at audio Since the SVF uses two op-amp
a6dB/octave roll- 'corner frequency', where the pass- frequencies it is common to use integrators, it's useful to know how
off in the stop- band ends and the attenuation is 3dB, active filters incorporating one or they work.
band. is given by Fe=l÷(21sCR). This is a more op-amps. This way, it is An integrator is like awater butt;
'single-pole' response, so called possible to design atwo-pole circuit if it rains steadily, the level rises at a
Fig. lb). Circuit b) because the transfer function shows a to give a12dB/octave roll-off, but constant rate, but it tells you how
has two such single pole in the complex plane, as still with only 3dB attenuation -or much rain has fallen in total, since it
cascaded sections explained in reference 1. even less -at F. was empty, whether the rain is
giving 12dB/octave A faster rate of descent into the Higher-order filters, giving steady or comes in bursts.
roll-off, but now stop-band, at 12 per octave, can be 6NdB/octave roll-off but still only Similarly, the voltage level Von a
attenuation at Fc is obtained by cascading two such 3dB or less attenuation at Fe,can capacitor C tells you how much
6dB. circuits, as in Fig. lb), to give atwo- also be designed. charge Q has flowed into it, the
charge being the water and the
charging current Ithe rate of
Input Output Input Output rainfall. So V=Q÷C. Capacitance C
ft.—WA-1—e
is in the denominator because the
bigger the 'water butt' C, the less
/-7 the (voltage) level for agiven
amount of charge (water).
a) b) Figure 2shows the usual sort of

818 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 ANALOGUE DESIGN

op-amp integrator, together with

what happens for the component v
values and input voltage shown. The
op-amp's non-inverting terminal is +1V
earthed, and the negative feedback
via C from the output to the
inverting terminal will cause the
latter to be at —or at least, very
-1V/second
close to —earth potential also.
There is an important oddity to
t
note, however. An ideal integrator
lu
with aconstant +1V input would
result in the output voltage rising at
aconstant rate. But with the circuit
arrangement shown, aconstant Input
Output
positive input results in an output
voltage going steadily more
negative. Thus the circuit is an
'inverting integrator', due to the
input being connected to its V
inverting input.
Non-inverting integrator circuits
exist, such as the De Boo integrator,
but they are alittle more
complicated than the circuit shown. Fig. 2. An op-amp
Figure 2also shows what happens integrator, showing its
when the input is asinewave at the response both to aDC
frequency Fc=1÷(27cCR), where the step function, and a
t t
=
reactance of the capacitor, in ohms, sinewave.
equals that of the resistor. Since the
current flowing in the capacitor is
equal to the current in the resistor, R2
the gain is unity, but the output
sinewave is at 90° —i.e. in
quadrature —to the input. In an ideal
integrator, it would be lagging by
90°, but due to this circuit's
inverting property, it appears to be
leading by 90°.
Output
In practice, integrators can be
tricky things to handle. Any
IC3
unintentional input, such as the op-
Fig. 3. In a), two
amp's own input offset voltage, will
integrators and an
be integrated for ever more. The
inverting amplifier
output thus has an annoying
Y. For the moment, imagine that it is are in aloop. Vector
tendency to wander off to one
disconnected from point X. It turns diagram 3b) shows
supply rail or the other, while one's VA
out that there is an identical voltage the response of the
back is turned. So integrators are
at point X, so the circuit would be circuit.
frequently used within an overall
negative-feedback loop to prevent capable of supplying its own input.
this, and the SVF is an example of The same argument applies,
just such acircuit. whether you assume avoltage at Y
of 2V peak, or of zero volts. The
Filter or oscillator? circuit is in fact either an oscillator,
Figure 3a) shows two integrators or afilter with infinite Q —the same Vs Vx (=Vy )
connected in aloop with aunity thing. In practice, due to residual
gain amplifier. As all three circuits excess phase shifts in the circuit, it
are inverting, the overall feedback is will almost certainly oscillate, the C1really does equal C2. If the
negative, and all three outputs amplitude building up until the output of the third op-amp is still
shown will sit at OV earth potential peaks of the sinewave hit the supply clipped, try interchanging C1and
—on average. rails. C2.
Figure 3b) shows the vector By making R2 and R4 equal to
diagram. This diagram assumes that 911d2 instead of looka, the clipping Making it stable
will take place in /C 1,resulting in Adding just three resistors can turn
there is asinewave of 1 V peak
amplitude and frequency rather apure sinewave at the low- the circuit into asanitary,
pass output, output of /C3,assuming designable filter of defined Q. But
Fc=1«21cCR)=1.59kHz, at point

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 819

ANALOGUE DESIGN

R2
"VVVy
100k
R3 Cl
I
nput
R1 100k --I
I--
n
R4
100k
R5
100k
o
100k • LP
IC1 HP •
102
BP
R7 /7717
103

Fig. 4. Diagram a) 100k

R6 (RC)
is Fig. 3ars
circuit, modified R8
300k
into afilter with
100k VO
defined Q of 3.
IC4
An impossible
vector diagram /7777

for the circuit at

frequency dashed vector shows the sum) it is low frequencies, through in phase at
F=1-(21(CR)is applied to the unity gain inverting Fc=1+(2ECR), to lagging by 180° at
shown in b). VBP amplifier / CI,resulting in an output high frequencies. The higher the Q,
Vgp=1/8. the more rapid the phase change
This is manifestly not the same as with frequency in the region of F.
Vy, so the vector diagram cannot be
right, as X and Yare the same point. Experimenting
But imagine that an input VIN ,equal Try making up an oscillator as in Fig.
in amplitude but opposite in phase 3a); hint: in the unlikely event that it
to VQ ,is applied. Now, VIN and VQ does not oscillate, try connecting a
cancel each other out, so the dashed capacitance of afew puffs'
vector is coincident with VI", and R.
(picofarads, or pFs) in parallel with 3
so V - V. This circuit can be used as an
The higher RQ ,the smaller VQ and audio-frequency source. Now make
so the smaller the input relative to up atuneable filter, as in Fig. 4a) but
the three outputs - i.e. the higher the using 1.5nF capacitors, and a 1001£2
gain at F. The result would have twin gang potentiometer, used as two
been the same if R6 and R8 had been R
variable resistors, in place of 4and
interchanged, and in fact that is how R
5.
as op-amps come four to apackage, the four op-amp SVF is usually Connect the output of the oscillator
the spare one can be put to good use designed. to the input of the filter. Monitor the
as in Fig. 4a), which incidentally Well below Fc.the low-pass output filter's band-pass output with an
makes it simpler to explain just how gain is unity and the high-pass gain oscilloscope, and adjust the two-gang
the circuit works. rolls off at 12dB/octave as the potentiometer to tune in the signal'.
Now, besides aband-pass output, frequency falls. Conversely, well You will find the filter overloaded,
there is a 1/3-scaled inverted band- above Fc. the high-pass output gain with the output waveform severely
pass signal also available. Feeding is unity and the low-pass gain rolls clipped.
this back into the summing off at 12dB/octave as the frequency R
Increase the input resistance 1of
amplifier provides adefined Q for increases. The band-pass gain rolls the filter to IMS1, and you should
the filter, as illustrated in the vector off at 6dB/octave either side of F, now find that the filter handles the
diagram, Fig. 4b), where, with the except in the vicinity of Fe,where signal without overloading. Try the
value of RQ shown, the Q is 3. the roll-off is steeper, the higher the effect of varying R6 (R(2), and see
In Fig. 4b), Ihave deliberately Q. how the centre frequency gain
shown avector diagram which is Combining the high- and low-pass increases as Q is increased. This is
impossible, if you imagine for the outputs provides anotch filter, since one facet of the SVF that can be less
References moment that V is zero. Assuming at Fe=1÷(2nCR), these two output than useful.
1. Analog as before that there is asinewave Vy are equal in amplitude, but in Another related filter desigh, the
Electronics, of 1V peak amplitude and frequency antiphase. The higher the Q, the biquadratic filter, handily provides a
2nd Edition Fc=1÷(2irCR)=1.59kHz, at point Y, narrower is the notch. Combining centre frequency gain that is
1999, Ian then V8p and VI, are as shown. But the high-pass and low-pass outputs independent of Q, although the down
Hickman, there is also VQ -an antiphase with 1÷Q multiplied by the side is that it provides no high-pass
Butterworth- version of Vg,,. bandpass output provides an all-pass output. You should be able to find
Heinemann, The amplitude of VQ is, with the filter. Its gain is independent of details of this and other active filters
ISBN 0 7506 circuit values shown, only one third frequency, but the output changes in most good electronics textbooks,
4416 8. that of Vim,. Added to VI, (the from leading the input by 180° at such as reference 1.

820 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

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824 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 Letters to the editor Letters to
"Electronics World"
Quadrant House, The
at the input, i.e., after the A treatment of nonlinear Quadrant, Sutton,
IMD versus THD transients have settled. These models incorporating memory is
Surrey, SM2 5AS
Ienjoyed Mr New's article, measurement techniques are beyond the scope of this letter.
`THD is meaningless,' in the therefore 'deaf' to transient That would take us into Wiener, e-mail
June issue questioning the response features of an Hammerstein, and Volterra [email protected]
relevance of total harmonic amplifier. models, among others.
distortion as afigure of merit. There can be little doubt that Note, however, that asingle
using subject heading
Nonetheless, any suggestion that transient detail is essential in sinusoid —or even two —is 'Letters'.
intermodulation distortion is a high fidelity audio reproduction: generally insufficient as atest
more objectionable distortion drums and percussion, for signal for determining the
mechanism than harmonic example, don't resemble parameters of anonlinear model overtones to give very low
distortion is misplaced, since the sinusoidal test signals. Neither with memory, no matter how frequencies, thus fulfiling the
two simply measure the same do the initial attack waveforms accurately one could measure definition of adiscord.
phenomenon: the deviation of from acompetent violinist or the amplifier output. No classical composer writes a
the amplifier from linearity. guitarist. Therefore, knowledge of the third or afourth down below the
Suppose we accept, for Indeed, it is unclear how behaviour of apractical bass clef, since the discord is as
simplicity, amemoryless non- suitable the sinusoid is as atest nonlinear amplifier in response bad as asemitone discord.
linear model for the amplifier. In signal for music reproduction, to asinusoid is ultimately Bernard Jones
this model, we attempt to write given that no major musical insufficient to predict its sonic London
the output signal as apolynomial works seem to have been qualities.
function of the input signal. If composed for the sinusoidal Two amplifiers with the same In his article on THD, Mr New
we inject apure sinusoid at the oscillator. harmonic spectra can respond to states that he finds it hard to
input, measure the gain of the Transient response features transients in distinct manners. believe that anyone can hear
amplifier and the strengths of the and time-domain behaviour, That would not be the case with small amounts of distortion at
different harmonic overtones, regrettably, are harder to memoryless nonlinearities. 10kHz. Ibelieve that even a
then we can determine the quantify in audibly meaningful To further the debate on what large amount is inaudible at that
coefficients of our polynomial terms. is audible versus inaudible frequency. If you doubt me,
model. The relationship between distortion, Imight suggest you carry out the following simple
From this model, we can impulse response and frequency commission some articles experiment.
accurately predict the response is valid only if the describing the MPEG layer III Connect an AF signal
intermodulation terms that will amplifier is indeed linear. audio coding scheme, and why generator to an amplifier's input
result from injecting two Rise-time or slew-rate figures its sound quality is fairly 'good' and aspeaker to its output. Set
sinusoids at the input. are of some use, but cannot despite its distortion. frequency to IkHz and the
It works the other way around constitute acomplete description Professor Phillip Regalia waveform to square. Adjust the
too: on measuring the amplifier of an amplifier's transient Institut National des volume to anormal listening
gain and all the intermodulation response. Telecommunications level, switch to sine waveform
products in the two-tone Such figures do not explain, Evry and note change in timbre.
experiment, we can again for example, whether France Increase frequency in
determine the coefficients of our microphonics in vacuum tubes — increments of IkHz and repeat
polynomial nonlinearity. however well controlled —have Iliked Anthony New's article the test. You will reach a
Therefore we can predict any impact on musical very much, but it led to avery frequency at which it is
accurately the harmonic transients. Nor do they explain • odd conclusion when Iread the impossible to distinguish
spectryn that will result from whether nonlinear Miller assertion that to add afew between sine and square wave.
injecting asingle sinusoid. capacitors in the form of percent distortion to anote from We read in the books that
This is to say that harmonic reverse-biased p-n junctions an instrument is merely to distortion sounds worse at HF,
distortion and intermodulation alter the trajectory of atransient brighten its timbre. but this experiment would tend
distortion are not distinct waveform. The little known fact is that to to indicate the opposite,
mechanisms, but rather different Sinusoidal or 'steady-state' instruments have true harmonics. This seems to confirm Mr
techniques to measure the very tests are deaf to transient Take the clarinet for example. Its New's theory that
same mechanism, which is influences, but are we sure that reed modulates an airstream in a intermodulation is the most
amplifier nonlinearity. listeners are? particular waveform, so that important factor.
Therefore, harmonic and Finally, Ishould point out that harmonics are locked to the John Ellis
intermodulation distortion the memoryless polynomial non- fundamental. Birmingham
measurements are equally valid, linearity referred to above, Others, such as the piano, have
or equally irrelevant, depending although agood 'mid-band' strings with different modes of Iread Anthony New's article
on one's position. approximation to areal vibration that are slightly above with interest, as it is always
Mr New is quite right in amplifier, is ultimately awhite the harmonic frequencies stimulating to have someone
defending psychoacoustics as a lie. pitchwise. So the tuning sounds come in from outside your
legitimate consideration in audio One may show that any better if octaves are 'stretched' a speciality and tell you you've
reproduction. This is not to be amplifier having afinite little. got it all wrong.
confused with so-called bandwidth cannot be Tests have shown that listeners Ihave probably spent more of
'subjectivist' views that are memoryless, i.e., the output expect these overtones to be out my life doing THD tests than
derided regularly by Mr Self and signal at agiven point in time of tune in the lower bass notes at most people, and it would be
his disciples. depends on the past history of least. Now if the note has disconcerting to learn at this
Harmonic and intermodulation the input signal. harmonic distortion added by an stage that it was all labour lost
distortion, for example, are Any amplifier exhibiting a amplifier, the genuine harmonics and work in vain. Ineed not
based on steady-state amplifier non-zero rise time must likewise generated for the fundamental have worried.
behaviour to asinusoid, or two, have memory. frequency will beat with the The point that seems to have

October 2000 ELECTRONICS WORLD 825

LETTERS

totally eluded Mr New is that products. Total: 6components. characteristics of the distortion intermodulation distortion.
no-body claims that THD is a Three sinewaves applied to a can help to tell us where to
direct measurement of audio third-order nonlinearity produce begin. Anthony New argues that it is
degradation. It clearly isn't. We three third harmonics, and 16 One point that Mr New does hopeless to describe an audio
do not listen to sinewaves for intermodulation products. Total: contend about the, "apparent amplifier by specifying its total
our entertainment, though they 19 components. subjective differences," among harmonic distortion. He
would probably be more The number of amplifiers Ican heartily agree proposes that instead
interesting than some television intermodulation components with: that they are mostly due to intermodulation distortion
programs. clearly builds up quickly. It differences in frequency (IMD) be used.
The point about THD is that it looks quite plausible that their response. One is left wondering just
is ahighly effective level could exceed that of the He may be surprised to know what test procedure to follow.
measurement of the linearity of harmonics by afactor of fifty in that these have been frequently After all, the results of an IMD
an amplifier. It needs relatively areal situation with many referred to as 'linear distortions' test will surely depend on the
simple equipment to determine, instruments and more complex in the audio literature. He does frequencies and amplitudes of
and gives avisual output that non-linearities. not mention what is typically the two —or more —input
often permits linearity problems Maybe Ishould write an responsible for such variations, signals. For an IMD test to be
to be diagnosed at aglance. article about RF technology. namely the interaction of the useful in comparing amplifiers,
If an amplifier has low THD Doug Self frequency-dependent load some kind of standard will be
across its working frequency Via e-mail impedance with the output needed.
range, then it must be highly impedance of the amplifier. Help is at hand. A book by
linear. It will also have low The June 2000 issue features a Valve amplifiers are notorious Terman and Petit —namely
intermodulation products. Imust polemical rant by Anthony New, for high output impedance Electronic Measurements,
admit that Ithought this was too which alleges that THD compared to sound solid-state McGraw-Hill, 2nd ed. 1952 —
obvious to need spelling out. measurements are irrelevant and Class-B designs. Now that some has asection on nonlinear
The real beauty of the THD irrational. Mr New then switching amplifiers are getting distortion in audio frequency
test is that the residual of the enlightens us as to what IMD is, audiophile attention, it is amplifiers. According to Terman
output signal —i.e. what is left its importance, and how to tempting to conjecture that the and Petit, of the many
after you have notched out the measure it. interaction of the load with their combinations of signals that can
fundamental —is basically the Although afew readers may output filters —filters required be used for an IMD test, two in
difference between perfection, find that this is all startling for reduction of RF emissions — particular merit attention.
i.e. no residual, and whatever news, it has to rankle even accounts for the reported One is the method used in the
damage your circuitry actually novice audio engineers to be told difference in sonic character. movie business, standardised by
does. This residual's waveform about measurements that they It is ahuman trait to hear the Society of Motion Picture
provides awealth of information routinely perform, and the value 'different' as 'better', unless the and Television Engineers
on what the problem is. of them, by an RF engineer who difference is simply awful (SMPTE). Here, alow-
Listening to music is another writes as if he had just ("...the amplifier revealed frequency signal, at frequency
matter altogether; you don't get discovered them. nuances and details in selection and ahigh-frequency signal, at
one frequency, you get lots at Far from unusual, IM X that I'd never heard 12,of somewhat smaller
once. distortion plots are even de before..."). amplitude are applied. The IMD
A solo instrument is likely to rigueur in such primarily Furthermore, knowing in is then expressed as the square
have at least 50 harmonics in the subjectivist audio publications as advance that the amplifier under root of the sum of the squares of
audible range. A small musical Stereophilel. The idea of evaluation is unusual in some the modulations ml,m2 and so
ensemble may provide four applying IMD measurements to way to which one is favourably on, where m 1is the degree of
instruments and two voices, audio is not New's —or news. predisposed — for example, 'all- modulation of f2 at frequency
which gives us about 300 Mr New acknowledges that digital' —almost guarantees a and m2 is the degree of
frequency components. THD can be considered asubset rave review. modulation at 2f1,and so on.
The possibilities for of IMD. He also goes on about Isuppose that it is agood The values used are 60-100Hz
intermodulation are clearly the distribution of harmonics and thing that Mr New's article may forfi,and above 5kHz forf2,
great. Irecall reading many the lack of such information in help to educate those hitherto with the amplitude ratio set to 4.
years ago (though Icannot, I'm the single TFID number. Again, unfamiliar with intermodulation The authors say that the actual
afraid, locate the reference) that even the glossy popular distortion. But he displays value of the higher frequency is
in general the level of magazines are showing complete ignorance and arrogance when not critical, and the IMD will
intermodulation products was spectra of harmonic distortion he implies that the, "parochial vary with fiif this is in aregion
likely to be some 50 times above these days. This is also not news. and fashion-conscious world of where the amplifier response is
the harmonic components. The utility of THD is in its audio," does not comprehend or falling off.
As aquick thought ease of measurement, and that it appreciate it. Another way of specifying the
experiment, consider how the tells us about nonlinearity and its Brad Wood IMD from the same test is
extra components generated dependence on levels and Chatsworth offered, based on the amplitudes
build up as the situation gets frequencies. It is by no means California of the sum and difference
more complex. useless. frequencies produced. In this
Two sinewaves applied to a With the exception of 1. Stereophile, Jan 1997, Vol. method, the amplitudes of the
circuit with second-order pathological cases, asignal with 20 No 12. various frequency components
nonlinearity produce two second agiven spectrum that is input to 2. I'm referring here to the are used. This approach might be
harmonics, and one anonlinear system will produce small signal use of feedback more straightforward in this day
intermodulation product. Total: an output with many additional in gain blocks and equalisers. of FFT.
3components. spectral components. If we see Power amplifiers driving In another method of
Three sinewaves applied to a significant THD, even only as a non-linear reactive loads performing an IMD test, the two
second-order nonlinearity single number, we know that seem to be the bone of test signals are equal in
produce three second harmonics, there is work to do. Knowing the contention. amplitude, and relatively high in
and three intermodulation time and frequency domain 3. Total harmonic and frequency. This is the method of

826 ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 LETTERS

the CCIF (International tracking down the original would be more meaningful than for something else, and so long
Consultative Telephone material, try the following: THD. Ihope to see some results as designers produce amplifiers
Committee, but in French). of such tests applied to modern in which frequency response
The distortion is described by Intermodulation testing,' by amplifiers published in the pages errors cause more distortion in
the ratio of the amplitude of the John K. Hilliard, Electronics, of EW/WW in the not-too-distant practice than are claimed in
difference frequency signal in Vol. 21, p 123, July 1946. future theory.
the output to the sum of the 'Distortion Tests by the Harold Kirkham The adherents of THD
amplitudes of the signals at the Intermodulation Method,' Jet Propulsion Laboratory conveniently ignore that THD —
input frequencies. Again, this Proc IRE, Vol. 29, p. 613, Pasadena under conventional single-tone
would seem to lend itself to Dec. 1941. California sinewave tests at least —does not
simple calculation. 'Instrument for Intermodulation measure the difference between
The frequencies are not Measurements,' Electronics, Anthony replies... the output and input signals
specified, but it is pointed out Vol. 21, p. 134, March 1948. Iseem to have stirred up a directly. They also ignore the
that the difference frequency 'Measurement of Nonlinear hornet's nest with my views on fact that that there is significant
should fall in the range of the Distortion,' Gen. Rad. Expt. the value of THD as a evidence of important
amplifier (Terman and Petit Vol. 25, March 1951. measurement tool —perhaps not differences.
suggest between 60 and 200Hz). 'American Standard Method of surprisingly! If any of them chooses instead
The method can be used to Making Intermodulation Although some may disagree to design multi-carrier RF
explore the IMD-producing Tests on Variable-density 16- with my conclusions, Ithink the amplifiers, one or two might be
nonlinearity of an amplifier's HF millimetre Sound Picture resulting discussion is agood deeply shocked to find that their
response. Prints,' J. SMPTE, Vol. 46, p. thing if it forces those inside the customers expect the
Terman and Petit go on to 303, April 1946. amplifier design industry and performance to be tested and
compare the various methods. 'Audible Audio Distortion,' H. those outside it to reassess their certificated by representative
For asingle-ended amplifier H. Scott, Electronics, Vol 18, methods and yardsticks. multiple-carrier signals rather
(those were the days!) operated P 126, January 1945 (covers Iam well aware, by the way, than convenient but
in aregion where there is little CCIT method). of the use of IMD figures in the unrepresentative sinewave ones.
distortion and the frequency 'An Analysis of the better hi-fi reviews over avery Why should the discerning hi-
response is flat, they say that the Intermodulation Method of long period; an earlier draft fi buyer accept anything less?
SMPTE IMD figure will be 3.5 Distortion Measurement,' contained references for this, Let us not forget that linearity
times the THD figure, and the W.J. Warren and W.R. which Iedited out for brevity. is not an end in itself, and that
CC IF IMD figure will be half Hewlett, Proc. IRE, Vol. 36, However Ibelieve my our choice of measurement
the THD figure. p. 457, April 1948 (and yes, comments are justified so long method itself needs to be
It is also stated that when the that is Bill Hewlett of H-P as hi-fi reviews still quote as an validated if the conclusions are
nonlinear distortion is different fame!) important figure of merit THD to stand scrutiny.
at different frequencies, these figures at levels below 0.01% — Anthony New
simple ratios do not apply, and It certainly seems that author which are completely Wireless Systems International
the correlation with listening New is right, and IMD tests meaningless except as aproxy Bristol
tests is lost.
Terman and Petit go on to say
that no one test correlates with
Blowing a trumpet for the horn sounding so realistic and natural when listened
listening tests over awide Ihave been following John Watkinson's series of from the room next door. This was attributed
variety of conditions. If asingle articles on loudspeakers with some interest. His precisely to the reverberant energy produced by
test is to be made, an comments on speaker polar pattern and placement its placement and polar pattern.
intermodulation test is usually have been particularly interesting. Notwithstanding all this, horns have not
more useful than aharmonic Interesting that these recommendations attracted ageneral following. They are certainly
distortion test. Some examples invalidated much of the wisdom of the 70s and not commonly found in contemporary high end
are given: THD of about 1% can 80s on speaker placement, which advocated the products —very true in the British scene with
be detected by listening tests, but 'extended headphone' model. This involved match box living rooms. Why is this?
is not serious until about 10% placing speakers directly in front of the listener to The usual answer is that horns sound, well, like
(these were the days of valves, minimise reflections and improve imaging while horns. This is too simplistic an answer and not
remember) playing down the role of reverberant energy as a true in my experience.
Even larger harmonic distortion useful attribute. In the above paper Klipsch shows that the horn
can be tolerated if the frequency Ihave recently reread two papers on can produce at least ten times less total distortion
is below 100Hz or above modulation distortion in loudspeakers by P. W. than adirect radiator at at least 10dB higher
4000Hz. Intermodulation Klipsch, AES, the second dated February 1970. sound-pressure level, obviating the need for high-
distortion cannot be detected by Traditionally Klipsch has advocated the horn- power amplification.
the SMPTE method until about loaded loudspeaker as the only practical way of Indeed, only about 3W of audio power is all
10% if the LF tone is below achieving realistic sound-pressure levels and very you need with the Klipschorn to produce near live
100Hz. If the LF is afew hundred low levels total modulation distortion* and wide sound levels in adomestic setting.
hertz, 3or 4% can be heard. dispersion. Mr Klipsch also advocates the use of Given the all merits of the horn, direct radiator
Interestingly, IMD by the corners in aroom mainly for his low-frequency designs are paradoxically too prevalent. The
CCIF method can be heard at horn design —the Klipschorn —but recommends it cost/size argument would only apply to bass
levels of asmall fraction of a for any loudspeaker to improve bass. reproduction. Horn mid-range speakers and
percent, and becomes These horn-based designs seem to fulfil the tweeters are of comparable cost and size.
objectionable at values of 3to requirements proposed by Mr Watkinson Can Iask Mr Watkinson for an update on the
4% when the difference regarding polar patterns and the generation of horn versus direct radiator issue? •
frequency lies in the range 400 reverberant energy which he suggests sets good George Evans
to 5000Hz —where the ear is and bad designs apart. Lyminton, Hampshire
most sensitive. Interestingly, on this point, amid eighties
For those of you interested in American review commended the Klipschorn for *Frequency plus amplitude modulation distortion

827
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ADVERTISERS' INDEX
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BETA LAYOUT 793 PICO 793

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DISPLAY ELECTRONICS 813 SIGHTMAGIC 791

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JOHNS RADIO 759 TELNET IFC

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LABCENTER ELECTRONICS 788 WEB PAGES 822, 823, 824

_ ELECTRONICS WORLD October 2000

 ELECTRONICUPDATE
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