My latest chip design

My latest chip design, up and running...

formatting link

(Security camera controller... multiple video functions.) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson
Loading thread data ...

Awesome. Is that on the customer's PCB? Is that their only use?

Bill

Reply to
Bill Garber

Yes.

See....

formatting link

It contains:

(1) Crystal oscillator (up to 27MHz) (2) POR, multiple POR checks, plus a timer... because it contains several bandgaps, it also serves as the master chip bias (3) Iris_Control (exposure servo) (4) EM_POTS, converts voltage or pot settings to PWM (5) Day_Night, honking +/- 80mA H-bridge push-pull actuator for an optical filter (6) UTC (up the cable), video DC restorer and data extractor of data in the VBI

Designed late last year for the group in New Zealand.

100% designed by yours truly :-)

And working on the end customer's PCB as of last Thursday. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Very nice work. Wonder how big the board would be to create that all from discrete components. 8^)

Bill

Reply to
Bill Garber

Well, depending on how much digital business could be implemented in tricky analog, it might not be so bad.

I wonder how big the *tube* equivalent would be. (c;

Tim

--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
Reply to
Tim Williams

That's why Kiwi Semiconductor made the PCB's themselves... to dramatically demonstrate the area savings. (Also significant power savings at even better performance :-)

Kiwi is apparently at some show in Vegas this week showing off my work :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Huge.

Often it's not as much the 'concept' as it is the ability to build it. Take a gander at this: the first 'plasma TV'. And, for the time at least, 'big screen'.

formatting link

How would you like to be the sucker stuck with hand wiring that thing?

Note down at the bottom a discussion about the hypothesized 'chin rest' that was, instead, for a telephone. Man, Bell has been trying to sell the idea of a 'video phone' for as long as I can remember and, apparently, long before I was even born. There it was 1927.

More Bell work

formatting link

'Video phone' was featured as one of the whiz bang 'high tech' deals in the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey. Wow! Gasp! 1927 tech.

Btw, here (about half way down) they mention color television in 1929

formatting link

Of course, you need a 'VCR'.

formatting link

1931-1932 Radio and Television catalogue.

formatting link

Prices may have increased since then but the Deforest 8 tube Television and Broadcast Receiver, down at the bottom, looks like one hell of a deal at $47.70. The seller is the 4 THOUSAND milliwatts of undistorted, non motor boating, humless audio.

But you still need a televisor so maybe the See All is a better deal. Depends on how much the tubes are.

Reply to
flipper

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Too bad I cannot show you want I finished last month as it would surely put me away for several life times. It puts your design to shame.

Reply to
George Jefferson

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

=A0 =A0| =A0 =A0mens =A0 =A0 |

=A0 | =A0 =A0 et =A0 =A0 =A0|

=A0|

=A0 =A0 =A0 |

Very Cool Jim!

Reply to
randyknutson

Pardon me. I mean this in the kindest possible way, but you sound like a real asshole.

Reply to
Bob

"Huge"? I said tube, not mechanical. A bulb per pixel, without printed wiring, is going to be terrible, that much is obvious. In contrast, a proper tube reciever only needs maybe ten tubes for the whole thing (fifteen if you include RF/IF strip, and about double that for color decoding). NTSC TV is actually insanely simple to build, which is no coincidence as that's what they had to work with, back in the day.

Now, a security camera controller, Idunno. If it's just control loops and stuff, no big deal. Heck, they even used vidicons up until quite recently. If it's got a lot of digital decoding and encoding, that makes the solution exponentially more active-device-intensive, which still isn't bad in and of itself, but the difference is, transistors are printed, tubes are not.

Of course, regardless of the tube technology used (including recent field emission research), it's hard to match CMOS current consumption.

Tim

--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
Reply to
Tim Williams

Hehe. Well, they did use tubes for transmission and reception. It's just the 'televisor' (and 'camera scanner') that's mechanical.

Well, that was the point and it's not so absurd a comparison as it might at first seem. The 'concept' is not significantly different than an LCD (or modern plasma) screen except, of course, you have to hand wire the matrix and individually manufacture the pixel elements.

Remember, my point was "Often it's not as much the 'concept' as it is the ability to build it."

As to your disdain of the 'mechanical', imagine doing the multiplexing with tubes. That's a lot more devices, and wiring, where a motor contactor is imminently simpler.

That is, as Dr. Daystrom said of the M5, "a whole new approach."

I find it fascinating how, sometimes, 'technology' goes in circles but certain approaches are dismissed based on a perception of what's 'high tech' at the moment. For example. 'digital' is 'the thing' today, right? Well, you can alter the impression by noting that multiplexed neon plasma picture was 'digital' while the CRT is analog. Which is the 'high tech'?

Even in the late 30's there were those who considered mechanical reproduction, various rotating mirror types, superior to the CRT because it could produce brighter and, so, potentially larger displays. 'Mechanical' did not have the automatic disparagement it later acquired; just like, today, we tend to assume digital is inherently superior to analog.

The death knell was the difficulty in keeping up with increased vertical line resolution.

Or was it? Lookie here.

formatting link

Shazzam!. Guess what, a couple million MECHANICAL mirrors on a die. Mechanical TV is BACK! As the magician said: "it's done with mirrors!"

Back in the 1930's it would have been absurd to suggest building thousands, much less millions, of individually flapped mirrors when a handful of rotating ones could do the job just as well but it's silly to spin that many mirrors when you can make micro mirrors.

All a matter of being able to build it ;)

Of course, the originally 'high tech' CRT is now passe' compared to the multiplexed 'digital' pixel, just like that 1927 display.

Btw, the DLP "color wheel" (mechanical too) is reminiscent of the failed CBS "color wheel" in front of the CRT while the 'three chip' version is like early 3 CRT color systems.

Well, I see it from the other side. That was about as complex as one could practically make for less than astronomical prices and it only seems "insanely simple" to you because you have "insanely simple" manufacturing techniques to work with.

Remember, the basic NTSC concept, serialized video reconstructed with one form or the other of flying spot scanner, goes back to before there was any way to build one.

Right: a manufacturing technique.

Computers used to be tube too, you know, but you couldn't build them small, fast, or cheap enough for ridiculously complex things like that. Didn't stop people from imagining robots, though, or Buck Rogers flying around in what must have been at least a 12 megaton spaceship to carry all those tubes and the hydroelectric dam needed to power them.

Reply to
flipper

Sure, it does... 'show you want I finished'

--
Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

That must be the ISC West, International Security Conference. Vicon is around the block from me, they had pretty impressive stuff. And that was 12 years ago.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Nice Jim. How long did it take to complete?

I think they need more caps on their board though its only 90% full.:-)

What are they bypass for the MCU ?

Reply to
Hammy

5 weeks start-to-finish... circuit design that is. 2 weeks for my layout guy to generate GDSII for the mask set. Parts out of XFAB last week.

I know nothing about their board, or how they use it. I design from a spec. They sign off on a spec. If it don't work in their board, but meets their spec, too bad, so sad ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Crikey! Another NymNoNuts ?:-)

FYI, that chip is a trivial one... high volume consumer stuff.

Last November I finished another design, probably 20X the complexity of the Kiwi chip. It's still in layout, possibly done end of next week. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Too bad you're so full of shit.

Must be a terrible life to be so incompetent... know it... then act like you don't :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

All you can see there is a dull old chip package, how about a block diagram or something better illustrating what's inside and the chips functionality?

Regards,

John Byrns

--
Regards,

John Byrns
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Byrns

You missed my post where I directed you to...

formatting link

It contains:

(1) Crystal oscillator (up to 27MHz) (2) POR, multiple POR checks, plus a timer... because it contains several bandgaps, it also serves as the master chip bias (3) Iris_Control (exposure servo) (4) EM_POTS, converts voltage or pot settings to PWM (5) Day_Night, honking +/- 80mA H-bridge push-pull actuator for an optical filter (6) UTC (up the cable), video DC restorer and data extractor of data in the VBI

Designed late last year for the group in New Zealand.

100% designed by yours truly :-)

And working on the end customer's PCB as of last Thursday. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jim Thompson

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.