I Making The Sliders Timers
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New Timer Parts List
I have listed most of the parts for my timer Prototype, which is finshed. I have not finshed my Final Timer yet so all the parts are not listed.
Desc
RCA® NITEglo Universal Remote Control
MODEL NUMBER: RCU4GLW
I recommend you buy 2, so you have left over parts and in the event you make a mistake.
Available at wal-mart and other department stores for around $20.00.
7 Segment LED Display (Red)
(Part for the Prototype)
I used 5 of these for the prototype. I used five because 6 would not fit. I am currently looking for smaller ones so that I will be able to fit 6 in.
Led Display 7.6mm (0.3") - $3.19
Available at Radio Shack
Rectangular LED's (red)
(Part for the Prototype)
I used around 20 of these for the LED lights at the top of the Timer.
Available at Radio Shack .
Infrared Emitting Didodes
Could be used for the emitters on the New Timer.
Can be found at newark.com: Infrared Emitting Didodes
Thanks to Mike Mallory for sending me the information.
LED (red)
I used 1 of these for the Flashing LED light at the bottom of the Timer.
Available at Radio Shack.
Bi-Colored Led (Orange/Green)
I used 2 of these for the top "emitters".
$2.39
Available at Radio Shack.
Switches
I used 3 of these.
Available at Radio Shack.
Key Pad
These are a good example of a set of key pad buttons for the New Timer.
*Note* The 4 blank ones on the right, and their similarity to those used on the New Timer.
This Key pad is available by online ordering from Grayhill.
*Here is the PDF file for detailed information on the key pad used for the timer: Key Pad File. You need to have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file.
Thanks to Lance for E-Mailing me the information for this!
LED Display's
Here are some more LED Displays these are available by online ordering from Mouser Electronics. They are available in a wide range of format's including dual digit and three-digit displays.
*Here are the PDF files for detailed information on the LED Displays used for the timer: LED File 1 and LED File 2. You need to have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file.
Thanks to Mike Mallory for sending me the information for this!
LED Bar Graph (red)
(Final Timer Part)
4 of these will be used in my Final Timer (not completed yet).
Dual 7 Segment Displays (Red)
(Final Timer Part)
3 of these will be used in my Final Timer (not completed yet).
Sheet of Black Plastic
If you are looking for a good inexpensive plastic, I recently bought a grey binder. Inside was a black plastic divider. The divider works really well for filling in the holes in the remote and you can use it later if you want to make your own Key pad buttons for you timer.
On the left is a close up of the binder divider.
Available at office depot and staples stores for $1.99 - $3.99
Winged Scarab
This Winged Scarab would make a really good Scarab Label, if you can afford to buy it.
*Note* As far as I can tell the website that used to sell this no longer does. So if anyone knows if they do for sure, or if you know of another place that sells this could you please let me know.
Binders
(Parts for the Prototype)
1 white and 1 grey, used in building the Key Pad Buttons and the Scarab Label.
General Electronic Wire Available at Radio Shack.
Printed Circuit Board kit Contains two 77x115mm (3x41/2") circuit boards, etching solution, tank, resist pen, 2mm (1/16") drill bit, stripping solution and polishing pad.
$19.99
Available at Radio Shack.
Etch-Resist Dry Tranfers Used when designing the pattren for the Printed Circuit Board.
$2.99
Available at Radio Shack.
* More Parts to Come so check Back often!
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Disclaimer
The Sliders - Timer Replica Site strictly an informational site.
I do not sell prop reproductions.
Sliders is a registered trademark of Universal Studios, characters, prop designs and names © Universal Studios. If any of Universal Studios affiliates has a problem with any term or image on this site, please notify me immediately and it will be removed.
This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Universal Studios or any of its affiliates.
The information on this page is for the exclusive use of fans. Commercial usage of any copyrighted material contained within is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner. Any reproduction, redistribution, or stealing of intellectual or material property from this site is prohibited. Violation of these rules will result in Invasion by Kromaggs.
Copyright © , 1999 - 2005
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Tools List
Here is a list of recommended tools that you should have when building your timer.
X-Acto Knife
A good tool for cutting out plastic, and other various parts for the timer.
STAEDTLER - Mars Profesional Template
A good tool to use when cutting out the plastic for the holes in the remote. Has two hole sizes that fit the remote perfectly. Also good if you are going to make your own keypad buttons it has squares that make, making the keypad easy to cut out also.
Available at Office Depot for $4.50.
Soldering Iron
Used later for sodering together the electronic parts.
Goggles
Common sense.
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Disclaimer
The Sliders - Timer Replica Site strictly an informational site.
I do not sell prop reproductions.
Sliders is a registered trademark of Universal Studios, characters, prop designs and names © Universal Studios. If any of Universal Studios affiliates has a problem with any term or image on this site, please notify me immediately and it will be removed.
This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Universal Studios or any of its affiliates.
The information on this page is for the exclusive use of fans. Commercial usage of any copyrighted material contained within is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner. Any reproduction, redistribution, or stealing of intellectual or material property from this site is prohibited. Violation of these rules will result in Invasion by Kromaggs.
Copyright © , 1999 - 2000
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Section 1
RCA Remote Modification Instructions
So you want to build a Timer huh, well before you start I suggest you read all the instructions that have been posted so far. Then try to gather as many of the parts that are on the parts list.
After that is all done you might also want to save or print the instructions from this webpage out too.
To start you will need to take the RCA remote apart. Once it is apart, take out all of the peices so that you are just left with the front half as shown, minus the buttons.
Save all the wires, screws and metal conectors peices as you will need them later.
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Disclaimer
The Sliders - Timer Replica Site strictly an informational site.
I do not sell prop reproductions.
Sliders is a registered trademark of Universal Studios, characters, prop designs and names © Universal Studios. If any of Universal Studios affiliates has a problem with any term or image on this site, please notify me immediately and it will be removed.
This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Universal Studios or any of its affiliates.
The information on this page is for the exclusive use of fans. Commercial usage of any copyrighted material contained within is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner. Any reproduction, redistribution, or stealing of intellectual or material property from this site is prohibited. Violation of these rules will result in Invasion by Kromaggs.
Copyright © , 1999 - 2000
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Section 2
Electronic Part Placement
Next you will to glue your 5 x - 7 Segment LED displays together with crazy glue. When you glued them together they should look like this:
When they are glued together check to see if they fit into the remote (see pic on the left). DO NOT glue them in the remote yet.
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Disclaimer
The Sliders - Timer Replica Site strictly an informational site.
I do not sell prop reproductions.
Sliders is a registered trademark of Universal Studios, characters, prop designs and names © Universal Studios. If any of Universal Studios affiliates has a problem with any term or image on this site, please notify me immediately and it will be removed.
This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Universal Studios or any of its affiliates.
The information on this page is for the exclusive use of fans. Commercial usage of any copyrighted material contained within is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner. Any reproduction, redistribution, or stealing of intellectual or material property from this site is prohibited. Violation of these rules will result in Invasion by Kromaggs.
Copyright © , 1999 - 2000
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Section 3
Circuit Design
(For Timer Prototype)
The following instructions are on how to create the Printed Circuit Board (PCB's) for the LED Display of the Timer.
* Note this is only to be attempted if you have experience in making and desigin Printed Circuit Boards.
If you are inexperienced in Making Printed Circuit Boards I have listed the following Sites which provide good knowledge on the subject of Circuit Board Making and Electronics construction:
- Electronics Basics (includes Soldering, Circuit board design and making)
- Alex's Electronic Resource Library
- Making Printed Circuit Boards
- Making PCB's
- ExpressPCB (A really good, free PCB designing Software)
The next page contains the pattern for the board.
- Next Page (Printed Circuit pattern)
- Main Menu
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Disclaimer
The Sliders - Timer Replica Site strictly an informational site.
I do not sell prop reproductions.
Sliders is a registered trademark of Universal Studios, characters, prop designs and names © Universal Studios. If any of Universal Studios affiliates has a problem with any term or image on this site, please notify me immediately and it will be removed.
This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Universal Studios or any of its affiliates.
The information on this page is for the exclusive use of fans. Commercial usage of any copyrighted material contained within is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner. Any reproduction, redistribution, or stealing of intellectual or material property from this site is prohibited. Violation of these rules will result in Invasion by Kromaggs.
Copyright © , 1999 - 2000
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STEP 1,2,3,4,5, ARE BELOW
STEP 1 Electronics Basics (includes Soldering, Circuit board design and making)
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Index
Basics
Acronyms
Basic tutorials
Theory
Cooling
Analogue electronics
Digital electronics
High speed digital design
Analogue-digital conversion
Protecting ideas and intellectual property
Electronics symbols
Materials
Component markings explained
Electronics construction
Component handling
Soldering
Prototyping
Casing prototype circuits
Circuit board design and making
Electronics design
Manufacturing
Basic circuits
Chemistry
Misc links
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Electronics basics
Basics
General
A Guide to Semiconductors Rate this link
How things work - physical explanations how common things work Rate this link
SI Units Rate this link
Techlearner - Basics of electronics and computers, links to industry, latest news on technology. Rate this link
The Vacuum Tube Era (1905 - 1948) - electronics history document Rate this link
Twisted Pair - a site dedicated to those in pursuit of an understanding of Electronics Rate this link
Unit Conversion Factors Rate this link
Using a multimeter - A meter is a measuring instrument. An ammeter measures current, a voltmeter measures the potential difference (voltage) between two points, and an ohmmeter measures resistance. A multimeter combines these functions, and possibly some additional ones as well, into a single instrument. Rate this link
Using the Multimeter to Measure Voltage and Resistance - Multimeters are commonly used to measure voltage and resistance between two points. Current is rarely measured because you must alter the circuit to measure the current. Rate this link
Acronyms
Abbreviations used in Electronics Rate this link
Electronics Dictionary Rate this link
Lexicon of Semiconductor Terms - Intersil has assembled this Lexicon of Semiconductor Terms, Abbreviations and Acronyms to improve understanding of the exciting world of semiconductors. Rate this link
Metric Prefix in Electronics Rate this link
What does k, M, m, n and p mean in component markings ? Rate this link
What's in a dB? Rate this link
Basic tutorials
A Guide to Semiconductors Rate this link
Basic Circuit Analysis - This page provides insight into Ohm's law, Kirchoff's law, LED calculations and voltage dividers. Rate this link
Basic electrical laws and circuits analysis techniques - Using Circuit Magic to study electrical circuit theory. Rate this link
How Semiconductors Work Rate this link
How to Understand, Present and Invent Electronic Circuits - This building electronics course is designed as an alternative to the classical approach. ba
Silicon, Circuits, and the Digital Revolution - Science Concepts behind High Technology Rate this link
The Hardware Tutor - a complete beginner's guide to understanding how electronic circuits operate, written from the perspective of a BASIC computer programmer Rate this link
The Transistor Story - The transistor was probably the most important invention of the 20th Century, and the story behind the invention is one of clashing egos and top secret research. Rate this link
Williamson Labs Electronics Tutorials Rate this link
www.electronics-tutorials.com - over 100 individual electronics tutorials Rate this link
What is Electricity? - Electricity is a form of energy. Electricity is the flow of electrons. Electricity is a basic part of nature and it is one of our most widely used forms of energy. We get electricity, which is a secondary energy source, from the conversion of other sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear power and other natural sources, which are called primary sources. Rate this link
Theory
A Basic Introduction to Filters - active, passive and switched capacitor filters, document in PDF format Rate this link
A Filter Primer - This comprehensive article covers all aspects of analog filters. It first addresses the basic types like first and second order filters, highpass and lowpass filters, notch and allpass filters and high order filters. It then goes on to explain the characteristics of the different implementations such as Butterworth filters, Chebychev filters, Bessel filters, Elliptic filters, State-variable filters, and Switched-capacitor filters. Rate this link
Basic Analog for Digital Designers - tutorial in pdf format Rate this link
Cable impedance - what is cable characteristic impedance Rate this link
Characteristic Impedance of Cable at High and Low Frequencies Rate this link
Electronics Concepts - course on electronics theory Rate this link
Elements of AC Electricity - Basic Electronics on-line tutorial Rate this link
Filters - examples of very many different filter types, good page for filter design information Rate this link
Laws of electronics - Ohm's Law and Kirchhoff's Laws Rate this link
Ohm's Law - equations, desc
Piezoelectricity education - includes basic information, application data, FAQs, introduction to piezo transducers, piezo history and recommended reading list Rate this link
Power factor - it is more than just cos(Phi) Rate this link
Semiconductor Physics for Solid State Electronics Rate this link
The Smith Chart - an RF engineering aid by Phillip Smith of RCA many years ago Rate this link
Transistors and amplification Rate this link
Understanding Electricity - an analogy with water Rate this link
On-line calculators
Capacitance-Frequency-Inductance CALCULATOR - for filter calculations Rate this link
dbm-Voltage-Impedance CALCULATOR Rate this link
Resistance-Frequency-Capacitance CALCULATOR - for filter calculations Rate this link
The Electronics Calculator Website - calculations for basic electronics calculations like resitors, inductors, capacitance and RC constant time Rate this link
Voltage-Current-Resistance-Power CALCULATOR Rate this link
Zener Voltage Regulator CALCULATOR Rate this link
Cooling
Heatsinks are the most basic form of cooling next to simple surface convection in today's electronics devices. If you look inside the average PC, you'll probably find two or three heatsinks: on CPUs, video cards, and even the chipset of a motherboard. Heat sinks are also seen on power electronics devices like power supplies, power amplifiers, light dimmers and electronics power switching components (like SSRs).
Typically heatsinks appear as nothing fancy: hunks of aluminum with a large number of protrusions. While there are different ways of manufacturing heatsinks, and different philosophies in the way they are shaped, the idea of all of them is the same: increase surface area to increase heat dissipation.
Not all heat sinks are created equal. The most important factor in a heatsink is, naturally, its ability to dissipate the largest amount of heat in the shortest amount of time. How good the heatsink is in this is typically indicated by how much one watt of power will heat it (C/W rating). The lower the C/W rating, the better the heat sink is at dissipating the heat, given proper ventilation and ambient temperature. Commercially made heat sinks typically have this number listed in their data sheet. This ability to transfer heat away from the component depends on a number of factors. First is material. The vast majority of heatsinks are made out of aluminum. Aluminum is an excellent conductor of heat, and relatively cheap. Roughly speaking, conduction can be understood as the transfer of molecular kinetic energy between solids. Copper is indeed a better conductor than aluminum, but because of it's higher price it is not common.
The second factor in heatsink effectiveness is, as mentioned above, surface area. The protrusions function to make the exposed surface area many times greater than if the same amount of material was in a solid block. The greater the surface area exposed to the air, the greater the dissipation of heat for a given quantity of metal. The temperature gets out of heatsink through convection and radiation. Convection transfers kinetic energy from solid ob
When heatsink is hot, it also radiates some of the hat as heat radiation, but on low temperatures the heatsinks normally are (typically below 100 degrees celsius) the radiation of heat is quite low. It is true, that the color of heat sink has some effect on radiation, but different color heatsinks are so similar once they're closed up inside your machine that they can be safely ignored.
Heatsinks are approximately equivalent, in heat dissipation, to a sheet of aluminum 1/8" thick by the dimensions shown below:
12" X 12" = approximately 2.1 degrees C per watt thermal rise (2.1 C/W)
15" X 15" = approximately 1.5 degrees C per watt thermal rise (1.5 C/W)
18" X 18" = approximately 1.0 degrees C per watt thermal rise (1.0 C/W)
In comparison, twice the amount of steel and four times the amount of stainless steel would be needed to achieve the same effect. Remember that the heatsink removes the heat from the electronic component that needs to be cooled and transfers that heat to the air in the electrical enclosure. In turn, this air must circulate and transfer its heat to the outside ambient. Providing vents and/or forced ventilation is a good way to accomplish this. It is a good idea to have at least one inch below them, so air can enter the finned heat sink area (if you have less free area, the heatsink is less efficient, meaning higher C/W rating). Heatsinks should always have empty space above them so the warm air can exit the heat sink area.
The heat must be transfered from the electronics component to a heat sink in some way, typically the component is mouted on heatsink (regulators, transistors, thyristors etc.) or heatsink is mounted on the top of the component (typical ICs). The best thermal contact is metal to metal (when the whole metal area touches each other and there is thus no insulating air gaps between metal). The best way of acheiving this is by "lapping" the contact area's together with a fine abrasive. Once your have done this the application of a minute amount of thermal grease improves conductivity by less than 0.5%. We also discovered that applying more than a fine film or grease significantly decreased the conductivity (10% or more). Due to the machining process, just about every heat sink will have a rough surface. To the naked eye it may look flat or even feel smooth, but there are microscopic groves in the surface. These groves will trap air between the heat sink and the CPU or other heat generating electronics component, and cause a poor transfer of heat. Thermal compound (Artic Silver, Nanotherm, etc.) is used to fill these groves and help transfer the heat from the CPU or other electronics part to the heat sink.
Lots of OEM or low end cooling setups use either a thermal interface pad (TIM) or that white goop (slicon ba
Calculation of Temperature Rise of Shrouded Heat Sink Rate this link
Fahrenheit to Celsius Conversion - This is an useful coversion calculator which converts between Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees Rate this link
How to Lap a Heatsink Guide - Lap the heat sink to make it smooth, allowing us to get the best possible contact between the CPU and heat sink. Rate this link
Premium Silver Thermal Compound: Instructions For Arctic Silver, Arctic Silver II, and Arctic Silver 3 Rate this link
Spice runs thermal analysis - performing a thermal analysis in Spice allows you to study a circuit's electrical performance and the accompanying thermal effects simultaneously Rate this link
The Ars guide to advanced cooling: Heatsink Edition - Heatsinks are the most basic form of cooling next to simple surface convection in today's PCs. If you look inside the average machine, you'll probably find two or three heatsinks: on CPUs, video cards, and even the chipset of a motherboard. Typically they appear as nothing fancy: hunks of aluminum with a large number of protrusions. While there are different ways of manufacturing heatsinks, and different philosophies in the way they are shaped, the idea of all of them is the same: increase surface area to increase heat dissipation. Rate this link
Thermal resistance: an oxymoron? Rate this link
Analogue electronics
Analogue electronics handles fixed and changing electroonics voltages and currents. The real world is an analogue domain and whenever a digital system wants to communicate with it, analogue electronics will almost always be involved. So you need to understand it. Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) have taken nowadays over many tasks that used to be handled solely by analogue circuits. There are, however, some jobs that are still way beyond the capabilities of digital systems: high frequency filtering, signal amplification, power amplification, signal switching and anti-aliasing filtering.
Electronics
A Filter Primer - This comprehensive article covers all aspects of analog filters. It first addresses the basic types like first and second order filters, highpass and lowpass filters, notch and allpass filters and high order filters. It then goes on to explain the characteristics of the different implementations such as Butterworth filters, Chebychev filters, Bessel filters, Elliptic filters, State-variable filters, and Switched-capacitor filters. Rate this link
Electrically Induced Damage to Standard Linear Integrated Circuits: The Most Common Causes and the Associated Fixes to Prevent Reoccurrence - application note in pdf format Rate this link
Operational Amplifier Calculations Rate this link
Signal level controlling
Gain control goes silicon - Increasingly, ICs are replacing mechanical potentiometers for gain control, providing both flexibility and compactness. How-ever, you must choose carefully from among available architectures. Incompatibilities, limitations, and unique architectures complicate the final choice. Rate this link
Inverted bipolar transistor doubles as a signal clamp - this article shows the bipolar-inverted-clamp circuit and a typical transfer function Rate this link
Operational Amplifiers by Oliver King - basic introduction to opamps Rate this link
Filters
A Basic Introduction to Filters: Active, Passive and Switched-Capacitor - introductory application note in pdf format Rate this link
Component Pre-Distortion for Sallen-Key filters - application note in pdf format Rate this link
Introducing the MF10: A Versatile Monolothic Active Filter Building Block - appliacation note in pdf format Rate this link
Low-Sensitivity, Lowpass Filter Design - application note in pdf format Rate this link
Negatrons enrich filter, oscillator designs - a test wave of high-performance op amps allows you to incorporate "negatrons" (synthesized negative resistors) into your oscillators and filters Rate this link
Switched-Capacitor IC Forms Notch Filter Rate this link
Design articles
Fully differential amplifiers remove noise from common-mode signals - The proper use of differential amplifiers makes it easy to implement differential signaling. Rate this link
Passive differentiator tops active designs - with properly selected components, this simple passive differentiator can beat the performance of an op-amp differentiator Rate this link
Step-by-step procedures help you solve Spice convergence problems - iterative approach for arriving at answers to nonlinear problems doesn't always converge on a solution but here are some tips to get results more often Rate this link
Spice subcircuit simulates any second-order filter - The Spice subcircuit filter given in this article along with the appropriate constants simulates any second-order filter. The subcircuit in the Listing runs under MicroSim pSpice. Rate this link
Take account of errors in designs using analog switches and multiplexers - consider nonideal characteristics when you design high-precision systems Rate this link
Transient test correctly models nonlinear parts - for large signal phenomena nalysis use a frequency-swept sinusoidal source as an input during Spice's transient analysis Rate this link
Understand capacitor soakage to optimize analog systems - Dielectric absorption can cause subtle errors in analog applications Rate this link
Digital electronics
Digital electronics handles digital signals. This means that in digital system the signals can be either logic 0 or logic 1. In digital circuits different voltage or current levels are used to represent the logc 0 and logic 1 levels. The used voltage or current values depend on the logic system used (logic IC family and operatingvoltage generally).
Basics
Asymmetrical noise margins - details on interfacing digital ICs, in many cases the high state tolerates much more noise than the low state Rate this link
Doing it Digital - Why then, do hobbyists (and small businesses!) often shy away from digital techniques? Rate this link
Introduction to Boolean Algebra - check also Rate this link
Introductory Digital Electronics - on-line tutorial Rate this link
Leroys Engineering Web Site Logic Design Information Rate this link
Some logic circuits using discrete components Rate this link
Digital IC characteristics
About the differences between the TTL families - General characteristics of the TTL families (HC, HCT*, LS*...) Rate this link
ECL - Emitter Coupled Logic - A quick definition for general consumption Rate this link
Low Power Schottky TTL logic levels Rate this link
Standard TTL logic levels Rate this link
Understanding Computers - introduces signed and unsigned binary numbers, two's complements, the carry, borrow, and overflow flags, and the effect of shifting signed and unsigned values, article is in pdf format Rate this link
Memory
How Memory Works Rate this link
ASICs
Technology articles
Applying basic grounding principles keeps demons at bay - Proper grounding and shielding techniques haven't changed much recently, but they've become more critical to a high-quality design Rate this link
EDA tools let you track and control CMOS power dissipation - knowing where your chip is dissipating power is important for both IC and chip-ba
Field-programmable devices - field-programmable devices come in a variety of fruity flavors, and more are arriving all the time Rate this link
FIFO memories supply the glue for high-speed systems - designers have long used FIFO memories to couple subsystems with disparate data-transfer rates Rate this link
Keep metastability from killing your digital design - Synchronizing asynchronous signals causes metastability, which makes it difficult to iron out the bugs during system test. Paying close attention to the synchronizer and some metastability equations can help you avoid the pitfalls. Synchronization bugs cause intermittent failures in board designs. These bugs can be frustratingly difficult to reproduce in the lab. Fortunately, careful designers can avoid this frustration by fulfilling two requirements. First, understand the principles of synchronization and metastability. Second, recognize the subtle situations in which these principles apply. Rate this link
Logic Family Voltage Translation - how to translate between TTL, 74xx, CMOS, ECL, PECL, Low Voltage TTL, LVTTL, etc. Rate this link
More pins and less space beget new IC packaging - new kinds of IC packages and new ways of connecting to dice-innovations that will profoundly affect upcoming product designs Rate this link
Moving Data across Asynchronous Clock Boundaries - Reduce data validity and timing problems without reducing data rates through careful design at the interface Rate this link
Noise budgets help maintain signal integrity in low-voltage systems - peaceful coexistence of CMOS and low-voltage I/O logic, such as 1.5V GTL, requires system designers to pay close attention to noise budgets Rate this link
S-88.110 DIGISKITTI - notes and information on a kit to help to learn basic digital circuit operation by building your own circuits, text in Finnish Rate this link
Some designs send mixed signals - The phrase "mixed signal" typically refers to designs containing both analog and digital functions or components, but in the real world, every electronic component behaves in an analog fashion, but you can connect these components to form functions amenable to digital approximations. Rate this link
Straightforward techniques cut jitter in PLL-ba
To be or not to be asynchronous; that is the question - Asynchronous logic conveys advantages in certain situations, but, unlike synchronous logic, which you can typically view as a series of sequential actions, you generally must view asynchronous logic concurrently. To make a choice, ask yourself the question, What has asynchronous ever done for me? Rate this link
Whose fault is it anyway? An introduction to digital fault simulation - Rigorous fault simulation ensures confidence in designs. Unfortunately, relatively few designers include fault simulation in their design methodology. Rate this link
Digital chip design
Basic Transistor Level Schematics and Rate this link
Layout Design: An introduction to CMOS layout design - Digital Electronics, Boolean Algebra, Transistor Level Schematics, and Stick Diagrams Rate this link
High speed digital design
When designing high speed digital systems, you need to understand much more than just bits. According to the classical view, the days when you could ignore signal integrity issued ended when bus-clock rates passed approximately 50 MHz. At that point, give or take a few megahertz, when you designed buses or interconnects, you had to start taking terminations seriously and stop thinking of reflections as just a little overshoot and ringing on waveform edges at state changes. Because of fundamentally analog SI (signal-integrity) issues that accompany today's higher data / signal rates, digital electronics is now as much analog as it is digital. There are only two kinds of electronics engineers working on this field: those who have had SI problems and those who will. Ideally, all high-speed-logic designs should include tightly coupled bypass capacitors for each IC, and all multil
Signal-integrity modeling of gigabit backplanes, cables, and connectors using TDR - The TDR (time-domain-reflectometry) method for signal-integrity analysis can help gigabit-system designers produce more accurate interconnect models, resulting in more reliable and higher performance designs. Rate this link
On-chip bypassing with series termination Rate this link
Beware of analog effects in pc-board conductors of fast digital systems - to avoid crosstalk and reflection problems in high-speed digital systems, you must consider transmission-line effects in the pc-board traces Rate this link
Both-ends termination - Terminations exist to control ringing (sometimes called overshoot or resonance). The best ways to control ringing on very long transmission lines are source termination, end termination, and both-ends termination. The both-ends termination is supremely tolerant of imperfections within the transmission system and within the terminators themselves. Rate this link
Breaking up a pair - The two traces comprising a differential pair, when routed close together, share a certain amount of cross-coupling, what happens when pair is breaking up Rate this link
Characteristic impedance of lossy line - This article illustrates the relative influence of skin-effect and dielectric losses on the characteristic impedance of a lossy transmission line. Rate this link
Choose termination and topology to maximize signal integrity and timing - Termination techniques improve noise margins and reduce signal reflections, but they require that you balance trade-offs among conflicting goals. Understanding your choices and their design impact helps you produce a more reliable and cost-effective design. Rate this link
Clock-jitter propagation - Many control systems exhibit a resonant peak between their tracking and filtering ranges. Rate this link
Constant-resistance equalizer - This article describes how to combines a good termination with a useful equalizing function. Rate this link
Constant-resistance termination - Constant-resistance termination occasionally sees application in digital systems as a terminating network. As long as you scale the components correctly, the rate of decrease in the admittance of the R-C leg precisely matches the rate of increase in the admittance of the L-R leg. The result is that the impedance, Z(f), of the whole circuit remains constant at all frequencies. At least, it remains constant until some limit above which the parasitic aspects of the circuit take over and the C and L components no longer behave like Cs and Ls. Rate this link
Differential-to-common-mode conversion - Any unbalanced circuit element within an otherwise well-balanced transmission channel creates a region of partial coupling between the differential and common modes of transmission at that point. The coupling can translate part of a perfectly good differential signal into a common-mode signal, or vice versa. Such differential-to-common-mode-conversion problems frequently arise in the design of LAN adapters. Rate this link
Driving two loads - The split-tee configuration conveniently drives two CMOS receivers from one output. Any time you build a split-tee, always simulate the circuit with a maximal degree of imbalance. For CMOS loads, that scenario means using the maximum load capacitance at one receiver and the minimum (sometimes zero) at the other. Look at the step response to see whether an observable resonance exists. Rate this link
Analysis and Optimization of Power/Ground Bounce in Digital CMOS Circuits - The high edge speeds and clock frequencies of advanced CMOS technology can produce unwanted oscillations during logic level transitions resulting in random logic bit errors. Rate this link
Grounding Rules for High Speed Circuits - This is a selection of application notes documents from Analog Devices Rate this link
Really cool bus - air-conditioning technicians do some really cool things with their big ductwork and the same principle applied to electrical-bus topologies yields some interesting results Rate this link
Decoupling capacitors: use them or fail - Theory is wonderful, but practicalities have their place. This rule is to use one 0.1-?F ceramic per digital chip, two 0.1-?F ceramics per analog chip (one on each supply), and one 1-?F tantalum per every eight ICs or per IC row. Rate this link
Delivering the High-Speed Clock: It's Not Easy To Be On Time - For the digital system clock in high-speed processors, being late, or even being early, causes serious system problems. By doing your homework and not taking design risks, you can ensure that your clock edges make their transitions in the right time window. Rate this link
Design and layout rules eliminate noise coupling in communication systems - high-speed telecommunication and data-communication schemes, such as SONET/SDH networks, noisy high-speed digital logic often shares board space with sensitive analog circuitry Rate this link
Designing for minimal jitter when using clock buffers - High-speed digital boards leave little room for timing margin, certainly not enough to take jitter performance for granted. Awareness of just a few key factors can yield superior performance by design. Rate this link
Designing with PECL (ECL at +5.0V) - The High Speed Solution for the CMOS/TTL Designer application note that tells that PECL, or Positive Emitter Coupled Logic, is nothing more than standard ECL devices run off of a positive power supply. Rate this link
Differential receivers tolerate high-frequency losses - If you instead select a differential receiver and a differential cabling system, the receiver thresholds more nearly center in the middle of the data pattern, because differential receivers are commonly specified with more accurate switching thresholds than ordinary single-ended logic. Rate this link
Differential signaling - The number of grounds depends on spacing and sizes of the connector pins and how they are bent Rate this link
Don't let rules of thumb set decoupling-capacitor values - Choosing decoupling-capacitor values can seem to be a "no-brainer." Unfortunately, even though the consequences of selecting the wrong values are often serious, the most commonly used methods usually produce the wrong answers. Rate this link
Equalizing cables - This article describes the basics of designing cable equalizers. Either style of fixed equalizer can fix a 6-dB equalization problem on a binary code. The simple fixed equalizer works for any cable length from zero to the maximum length. If, however, you need to fix a more-than-6-dB problem or you are using multilevel coding, then you must implement either an adaptive equalizer or a specific equalizer circuit coded for each cable length. Rate this link
Exploit the potential of high-performance CMOS by selecting best interface - High-speed-bus and point-to-point interfaces between CMOS ASICs are no longer limited to conventional CMOS-level signals. By using low-voltage interfaces in a differential, point-to-point, terminated-transmission-line environment, you can obtain data rates of several hundred Mbps. But, to accomplish this, you need to understand interface characteristics and requirements and the system limitations that affect maximum speed. Rate this link
Eyeing jitter: shaking out why signals shake - Jitter may be the enemy of data integrity, but attacking jitter head-on is only one, and not always the fastest way, to end data corruption. itter has become a hot topic among system designers. Seemingly easy to understand, it provides a quantifiable, thanks to the now-ubiquitous eye-diagram display, graphical indication of the severity of a host of phenomena that damage data integrity. Jitter's importance is undeniable, but whether it deserves all the attention it has been getting is another matter. Rate this link
Ground-current control enhances dynamic range in high-speed circuits - Preserving dynamic range in communications products, as well as minimizing unwanted electromagnetic radiation from digital circuitry, requires careful control of currents flowing through ground returns. Rate this link
Growing your own IC clock tree - Defining the clock-distribution network is one of the most difficult aspects of high-speed digital systems and system-on-a-chip designs. Employing the right design methodology helps you. Rate this link
High-speed connectors' electrical properties eclipse mechanical traits - faster rise times and wider buses have changed all the old rules of thumb, now you must rigorously analyze connectors Rate this link
High-speed-connector systems - In high-speed systems, you can't afford to look at connectors as just blobs of plastic and pins. Instead, adopt a systems approach that takes account of the connectors' complex interaction with other parts of the host-system design. Rate this link
High-Speed Digital Design - site with lots of very good high speed design information Rate this link
How to make a processor with the delay between instructions less than a half nano second in standard 1u CMOS. (GHz instruction frequence) Rate this link
Intentional overshoot - The risks associated with intentional overshoot usually outweigh the benefits, especially when a simple, nonresonant end termination provides an equivalent improvement. Rate this link
Understanding Common-Mode Signals - To understand how common-mode signals are created and then suppressed, you should first understand the interaction of shields and grounds in common cable configurations. The following discussion defines a common-mode signal, reviews the common cable configurations, considers shielded vs. unshielded cables, and describes typical grounding practices. It iscusses methods whereby common-mode signals are created and rejected. Rate this link
Modeling and simulation capabilities smooth signal-integrity problems - Like speed bumps on a road, signal distortion, crosstalk, interconnect delay, and EMI can force you to slow your logic circuits unless you take steps to avoid these problems early in the design cycle. Today?s modeling and simulation EDA capabilities make those steps easier and faster than ever. Rate this link
Mysterious ground - For single-ended measurements, don't depend on mysterious ground connections. Always use a good, short ground connection. A short, explicit ground connection made between the scope ground and the equipment under test shunts L and C components on the measuring cable, eliminating their influence on the measured result and pushing the probe resonance up and out of the band of interest. All good probes come with short, tiny ground attachments to prevent such problems. Rate this link
Negative Delay - The rule of causality prohibits the existence of a negative-delay circuit. This article reveals how to make a negative-delay clock repeater, which is really just a positive-delay circuit with a delay u set to a little less than one clock period. You can easily implement a negative clock delay by using a coaxial cable of a suitable length. Rate this link
PC-board layout eases high-speed transmission - As digital techniques move to higher speeds, designers become aware of the need to treat pc-board traces as RF transmission lines. In these lines, you strive to hold the line impedance, Z0, to a constant value typically, and to terminate the line with the same impedance. Data families such as ECL, PECL, and LVDS send data over a pair of traces known as a balanced transmission line. If the traces are on the top of a board with a ground plane under them, then you can model them as coupled "microstrip" lines and if the traces are in a la
Practical timing analysis for 100-MHz digital designs - As increasing chip complexity, high clock rates, and analog signal-integrity issues complicate digital design, time-to-market pressures continue to shorten development schedules. These factors present increasing challenges to digital-design engineers. Most technical literature on high-speed design focuses on termination, ringing, and crosstalk. Despite signal integrity's importance, inadequate timing margins cause many more errors in today's 100-MHz digital designs. Rate this link
Protecting high-speed buses at 1 Gbps and beyond - Circuit-protection trade-offs become more challenging as bit rate increases, but la
Reducing Emissions - Many hardware-design engineers use signal-integrity-analysis software to check every trace on their boards for acceptable ringing, crosstalk, and delay. Often during this process, the termination resistors are changed to ensure that the proper voltage waveforms arrive at every receiver. Once the voltage waveforms are acceptable, the design process is complete. This process is good enough for signal integrity, but it's not good enough for EMI because most radiated-emissions problems depend more on signal currents than on signal voltages. Rate this link
Reducing EMI with differential signaling - Differential signals radiate less than single-ended signals do. That's one of the benefits of differential logic. If the two complementary signals of a differential pair are perfectly balanced, the separation between traces entirely determines the degree of field cancellation. If, however, the two complementary signals are not perfectly balanced, then the degree of attainable field cancellation is limited to a minimum value determined not by the trace spacing, but by the common-mode balance of the differential pair. Rate this link
Signal-integrity modeling of gigabit backplanes, cables, and connectors using TDR - The TDR (time-domain-reflectometry) method for signal-integrity analysis can help gigabit-system designers produce more accurate interconnect models, resulting in more reliable and higher performance designs. Rate this link
Signal Integrity: Words of wisdom - Measure everything. Sit with your layout people. Make your hardware testable. Rate this link
Solving signal-integrity problems in high-speed digital systems - Signal-integrity and transmission-line simulation is a crucial part of high-speed digital design. If you repair signal-integrity and crosstalk problems before building your design, you can eliminate unnecessary design tangents and improve design quality and yield. Rate this link
Testing gigabit serial buses: First, get physical - Verifying product designs that incorporate today's superfast interconnects and buses begins with modeling and simulating the physical la
The nuts and bolts of signal-integrity analysis - Analyzing signal integrity is not like gazing into a crystal ball or shaking bones over a design to determine its viability. You must implement a set of tools, software, and reporting mechanisms to determine whether a design is acceptable to ship. Rate this link
Understanding common-mode signals - The interactions between shields, grounds, and common cable configurations are central to understanding common-mode signals' creation and their suppression. Rate this link
Use local bypass capacitors to meet rigorous high-speed-system demands - When conductors look like inductors and supply lines must absorb amps of fast-edge glitchiness, low-inductance, locally applied bypass capacitors come to the rescue. Rate this link
When the package means as much as the chip - Successful design of high-speed, high-pin-count ICs requires packaging engineers and chip designers to work closely together throughout the project. Rate this link
Why 50 ohms? - Why do most engineers use 50 ohm pc-board transmission lines on circuit boards and why it is a common coaxial cable type? Rate this link
50-ohm mailbag - some interesting justifications for the use of 50 Ohm coaxial cabling Rate this link
Ground fill - The "poured-ground" (more commonly called a "ground-fill") technique is useful on two-la
Analysis of board layout helps cure jitter problems - In a design in which you must reduce tight timing, routing all timing-sensitive lines in buried stripline la
On-chip bypassing with end termination Rate this link
What's that glitch? Rate this link
Digital common-mode noise: coupling mechanisms and transfers in the z axis - Digital noise can couple into sensitive circuit regions of an analog/digital board. The process of noise production from the common-mode point of view in the z axis merits careful analysis. Rate this link
Return current matters - Differential architectures sometimes tempt you to ignore return-current issues, assuming that the signal current returns on the other trace. Although in some cases this assumption may provide a useful mental image, it is not true. Even in a differential configuration, current flows separately on the planes under each trace, almost as if they were two independently routed, single-ended signals. Rate this link
Digital signal level translations
Circuit converts between TTL and shifted ECL - bidirectional circuit translates TTL to shifted ECL (SECL) Rate this link
Comparators form 3 to 5V or 5 to 3V translator/transceiver - in some cases it is necessary to interconnect 3 and 5V open-collector transceivers Rate this link
Low-cost circuit programs EEPROMs - When you migrate to 3.3V system supplies, you must usually replace your old, reliable EEPROM programmer with a new, overly flexible and expensive universal programmer. For less than $100, the circuit extends the functional life of any 5V EEPROM programmer. You can apply the circuit to any bidirectional 5 to 3.3V level-translating application. Rate this link
Mixed Voltage Systems: Interfacing 3.3 Volt and 5 Volt devices - examples for Xilinx CPLDs and FPGAs Rate this link
Tapered transitions - Consider the problem of adapting a straddle-mount SMA connector for a 10-Gbps digital application. Exponential transitions are essential at high frequencies. A 1-in. exponential transition from the 0.060-in. SMA signal pad to a 0.010-in. trace should provide startlingly good performance from dc to 10 GHz. Rate this link
Two transistors form bidirectional level translator - illustrates a translation from 5 to 3V, but it can accommodate almost any other voltage levels, provided the logic-low levels are equal (usually 0V), translation from 1 to 100V are possible although slow Rate this link
Two-transistor circuit replaces IC - Linear Technology's recently introduced LTC4300 chip buffers I2C clock and data lines to and from a hot-swappable card. This task is difficult because the IC must work bidirectionally, meaning that you can simultaneously and actively drive both sides. However, as is sometimes the case, you can replace a complicated circuit by a simple one without much loss of performance. For example, transistors and resistors replace the entire IC. Two npn transistors, connected head-to-head, form the heart of the circuit. The two-transistor circuit offers the additional benefit of acting as a level translator between two logic levels, for example 3.3V and 5V. Rate this link
Useful Tips Ease Interfacing Of Logic Devices In Mixed 3-V And 5-V Systems - You Can Insure Data Reliability In Mixed-Voltage Systems If You Pay Attention To These Key Concepts. Rate this link
Analogue-digital conversion
An analog-to-digital converter (also known as an ADC or an A/D converter) is an electronic circuit that measures a real-world signal (such as temperature, pressure, acceleration, and speed) and converts it to a digital representation of the signal. A/D-converter compares the analog input voltage to a known reference voltage and then produces a digital representation of this analog input. The output of an ADC is a digital binary code. By its nature, an ADC introduces a quantization error. This is simply the information that is lost, because for a continuous analog signal there are an infinite number of voltages but only a finite number of ADC digital codes. By increasing the resolution of the ADC, the number of discrete steps is increased, which reduces quantization errors. Some A/D converters sample the input signal continuously, whereas others sample at specific times. Any A/D converter that uses a track/hold buffer must periodically connect its track/hold capacitor to the input signal, causing a small inrush current. All the sampling processes are limited by Nyquist limit. The Nyquist limit is defined as half of the sampling frequency. The Nyquist limit sets the highest frequency that the system can sample without frequency aliasing. In a sampled data system, when the input signal of interest is sampled at a rate slower than the Nyquist limit (fIN > 0.5fSAMPLE), the signal is effectively "folded back" into the Nyquist band, thus appearing to be at a lower frequency than it actually is. This unwanted signal is indistinguishable from other signals in the desired frequency band (fSAMPLE/2). Usually the signals are prefiltered before they enter the A/D-converter to avoid too high frequency signal components which can cause this kind of unwanted signals. In actual practice, you should sample at a rate much higher than two times the Nyquist limit to minimize sampling errors (general rule of thumb is 5 times higher that highest frequency needed to be analyzed well) or you
