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Radio Frequency identity (RFID) Triggered Relay Kit

KC-5393 £26-25 -l- post and packing

RFID systems can operate much like a conventional lock and key but wireless.

The RFID tag' transmits a unique code when energised by the receiver's
magnetic field As long as the tag has been pre-programmed into the receiver,
access is granted This project provides a normally open and a normally dosed
electrically switched output triggered by a tag. Kit includes circuit board, one

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Dual 12V Battery Controller Kit

KA-1702 £14.50 - post and packing

This project connects an auxiliary battery in
an SUV to the charging system when your
engine is running, then disconnects it when
switched off. This prevents your main
vehicle battery from going flat. You can
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it can handle around 1GD amps of
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Transfer all of your Beta max, VHS, and
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systems. Kit supplied with

weatherproof die cast aluminium

case, circuit board, and all electronic

components.

■ Works great on points ignition tie. older cars). Can
be used on newer cars with Hall-effect sensor.

We S OCk

3 Stage FM Transmitter Kit

KJ-S75Q £5. SO t post and packing
The circuit board may measure just 2”(U x 11/IGiWJ ,
but ft can transmit signals over half a mile in the open. It
has flexible power requirements, with 6 to 12VDC input
voltage (so a 9V battery would be suitable). It is quick to
build, and fun to use. Kit supplied with circuit board,
electronic components, and dear English instructions.

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Audio & Video
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That's mIPS, not MIPS

This issue has o focus on microcontroller technology which has been
a major subject in Elekror Electronics for 20-odd years already, not
forgetting, of course, test and measurement, audio, RF, power sup-
plies and what have you. With so much of 'all the latest technology"
being pushed on,, across [and eventually off) my desk all the time, it
is good to take a deep breath at times and reflect a moment on
where it all came from. In this very issue we present 'ARMee', our
first 32-bit microcontroller development system and it is no coinci-
dence that this beast is solidly based on □ pleihora of support tools,
some free, some commercial, but always just a few dicks away.

What a contrast with the SC/MP ('scamp': Computer sprawling
across the grim looking pages of Elektor in ] 978, Youngsters will
laugh their heads off: jokes about milli-instructlons per second (mIPs);
programming an 8-bit micro bit-by-bit, yes that's flipping eight minia-
ture rocker switches to, say, 0101 0] I \ in order to prepare one byte
■57' tor storage in memory, while also knowing what the associated
opcode' like MOVX or similar gibberish is supposed to do. Error
reports, FAQs r whad ye mean?

No wonder older programmers are still able, beer in hand, day or
night, to tell you the bit configuration far any hexadecimal word you
care to throw at them. With today s explosion of computing power, it
all looks like futile knowledge. And yet, I doubt if those readers back
in 1978 diligently assembling and programming their SC/MPs 'the
hard way got less tun and satisfaction from their project than anyone
in the Internet age capable of pushing a few PC keyboard buttons
and flashing a credit card. There is a microcontroller heritage and
the investment of 27 years ago did not go to waste.

Jan Suiting - Editor

Icktor

lectronics

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Volume 31, Number 342. April 2005 iSSi . 0265 19

Elektor Electronics aims at inspiring people to master
electronics at any personal level by presenting construction
projects and spotting developments in electronics and infor-
mation technology.

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International Advertising

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international editorial staff: - e- figr:- — GG'Ge ■ ^ - 7 - —

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5

lectroriics

<3 * t-m

In the design stage for microcontroller circuits, pro-
fessional and amateur designers often wrestle with
the question of which microcontroller to use, since
thousands of different types ore commercially avail-
able. This article is intended to help guide you
through the selection maze.

Bored with PICs, AVRs and 8051s everyone else
is doing? Last month we covered 32-bit ARM
microcontrollers and the undeniable star From all
the devices discussed in that article was the
Philips LPC21Gx. This month the real thing is
upon us: enter ARMee, an incredibly powerful
ARM development board you can build and pro’
gram yourself.

Informative Articles Regulars

12

MadetoMeosure Processing Power

5

Foreword & Colophon

42

Working with 32-bit Micros

8

Mailbox

(Keil ARM review)

10

News: Mac Mini

44

Delphi For Electronic Engineers (4)

67

New Products

52

Super Lithium Batteries

78

Quizz'away

70

E-Online: Pick your Micro

82

Readers Services

72

New Road Toll Systems

84

Sneak Preview

77

retronics: Elektor SC/MP Computer (1978)

84

Index of Advertisers

Volume 3 1
April 2005
no. 342

SIIH

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Recharge J
BATT£ R ,

BAT >USHl''A EiF- If

Mmosf every electronic circuit con-
□Sns bipolar transistors, FETs or
liodes. Most electronics hobbyists
iave a supply of such components
amoved from old circuit boards. A
=$ter that can be used to sort out the
3ads and measure the characteristics
j thus a handy tool.

Modern mobile electronic gadgets demand
ever more portable and powerful energy
storage devices. Research by battery manu-
facturers all over the world moves on
apace; new developments supplant old
technologies, and are themselves almost
instantly superseded by even newer tech-
nologies. The field is in a state of constant
Flux with new surprises every day.

Germany's sophisticated new network
using GPS, GSM and infrared technology
has only been up and running since the
beginning of the year but the Department
of Transport and UK Customs and Excise
are watching closely and have announced
their intention to introduce a similar sys-
tern in the UK,

Construction Projects

20 LPC210x 'ARMee' Development System (2)

34 SC Analyser 2005

50 Brachion Detector

60 Simple LiPo Battery Charger
68 start here:

Spark Transmitter - Flashing Light with
Dimmer - Rev Counter for Mopeds

STOP PRESS...

Does alcohol

cause violent behaviour?

Brachion Detector - page 50

mailbox

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21 1 liektors for sale (2)

Further fo an item in Mailbox,
February f 2005 r Mr Mike Pear-
son kindly advised as “Fat flis
complete collection or magazines
has been sold. We congratulate
Mike cn the sale and the buyer
an obtaining a massive amount of
information .

We advise readers wishing to
c da r the T s took of old m ago z Inez
or cooks fo do so using Market-
o i ace cn our webs ile . [Edi to r j

anyone has under-
taken any tests fo see what
the difference in ERP is under
these conditions. Maybe the
effects on health would be
less if the areas around high
numbers or handsets were
served with good reception,
Martin Bushnell (UK)
Interesting thoughts Marlin, lets
hear what other readers hove to
soy about the subject This discus-
sion may be continued in the
Forum on our website.

Mobile telephone masts
Dear Editor, here's an alierna-
five rhought about the installa-
tion of mobile telephone
mosts near schools. As I
understand it, the ERP (effec-
tive radiated power] of □
handset is directly related to
she signal reception quality.
For example in □ poor signal
area the output power of the
handset increases and con-
versely in a high signal
strength area the output
power is reduced. This is not
just while a call is being
made but all of the time that
the network is handshaking'.
This is why the battery runs
down quicker when the hand-
set Es located in poor recep-
tion areas. That being the
case and considering that
any adverse effects on a
Childs health is likely to be
caused by the close proximity
of the handset to the head, it
might be worth considering
that a mast dose to a school
would cause the handsets
within that area to be produc-
ing less radiation. \ wonder if

Copybif Killer
Dear Jan — in an earlier
instalment of Mailbox (can't
remember which one exactly)

I saw a reference fo the
January 1996Copybit
Inverter project, with an edito-
rial remark saying Shot that
particular design worked best.
My Elekfor year volume CD-
ROMs tell that since 1 996,
two similar designs were
published (In 1997 and
2002], so I wonder what
your advice would be today,
Frank Budde (Netherlands)
The design from the June 2C02

issue has more potential than the
previous ones and is new recom-
mended. You may download the
DASP 2002 article from our
v. eh site.

NiCd battery
advantages (2}

Dear Editor ■ — In your
February 2005 edition Mr.

Mark Vermeulen of the

Netherlands has many
favourable words about
NiCd batteries for cordless
tools and PC models,
tn my country (Denmark) it is
very hard to find cordless
tools without NiMH batteries,
as there is a high penalty fax
on NiCd cells. Stack is kept
for existing equipment, but
the mainstream is NiMH,

That goes for radio controlled
airplanes and ship models
too, whereas racing cor mod-
ellers still seem ro want the
1 00-3- Amp capability of the
NiCd cells far half a minute
or so. The conclusion is that
the battery manufacturers —
under sufficient pressure —
are able fo make reliable
and long-lasting batteries and
rather cheap too.

Our discount chain stores sell
1 8-volt cordless drills for as
little as 129 DKK, that is
about £ 12 or 17 Euros.

Paul Barge Pedersen
(Denmark)

Foil owing this interesting view-
point from Pec Barge and in the
interest at our environment t am
again Inviting other readers tc
join the discussion,, which may he
continued In the Forum on our
webs be.

USB/I^C Interface (2)
Dear Elektor — your
'USB/I 2 C Interface 1 , EE
December 2004. employs
the same USB controller
(TU5B34 1 0) as the
'MultiPrcgrammer on U5B
from the June 2004 issue. In
the first article, the chip is
connected to a 3.3-V supply,
while o 5-V supply is used in
the MultiProgrammer.
Considering that an LC ver-

sion of the EE PROM is used,
and having seen the maxi-
mum permissible values in
the TU5B3410 datasheets
[max. voltage an I/O pins -
Vcc -r 0.3 V], I believe your
design is flawed. Incidentally,
I found that the EEPROM on
the MultiProgrammer beard
Is connected to 5 V.

Rainer Bittendorf
(Germany)

Correct, but supplying the EEF-
ROM from 5 V Is not a oroblem
because the pull-up resistors will
limit the current sufficiently. The
same method is a iso see~ in e. j as
In s i tu men ts ' app ica 1 1 c n n ores.

VOX AC-30 query
Dear Jan — I've recently
pulled a VOX AC-30 tube
amplifier schematic off the
internet, and was wondering
if someone could answer a
question for me. All the AC-
30 amplifier schematics that
t've come up with hove EL 84
tubes in the output position,
however this particular
schematic has EL34 s in the
output position. Is this a mis-
take, or has someone taken
liberty to upgrade the
schematic? Any help would
be appreciated, thanks.

Greg (by email)

The VOX AC~ 30 amplifier is leg-
endary' tor its unique sound. Tl is
a collector's item and used by a
surprising number of guitar play ■
ers young and old. fra m N. E/R.D
to Col dp! ay and New Order. I m
informed there are even DSP -

8

rkklQT tkdroTUH - 4/2005

Is [Access awoke?

Dear Eleklor staff — I built the (Access system (February
2004, Ed.] but I've no idea what should happen when I
switch if an? For example, how do I know the microcon-
troller is actually running?

Diefmar Terhorst

(Project Engineer Electronics, OPEL Germany}

• i r, „ autnor/ designer fixe Joostens replies: At power-on or after o
r th s ji r rr ’> '■ ore pu II s PO. 2 (p in 57} o n thi s processo r !c w for aha y t
0. 1 second. This should happen even without an LC display mcd-
UiS conneci^j. h o buzzer is connected to Bz I on the printed circuit
hoard, you will hear a short beep since if is connected to F0.2. if
you warn *o measure the level on F0.2 with a voltmeter without a
buzzer being present, you need to connect a resistor or about 1 k
between the 5-V supply voltage and FD.2 since port 0 of the proces-
sor has no Internal pull-ups.

it P0.2 does not go low tor a shod time after reset or power-on,
there is likely to be a problem with C3 , C4. XI or id is not. or
nor properly programmed with the firmware (IC1 might a/so be
detective}.

Be sure o mount crystal A j ocauf 0 . Omm above the printed circuit
board to prevent its metal case touching the solder pads on the com-
P ' s fit side, ii necessa ry r . using o n osc ; : Has cop e yo u m a y check th e
p.i e^nce or tne clock signal on pin 1 S (X !AL2} of the controller,
in the past, i noticed that the program Micro flash necessary to pro-
gram me controller with the firmware does not always function prop-
erty, Sometimes the controller gets partially programmed or even
remains blank without any warning message from Microflash.

If you use At rcro flash. / would recommend programming ihe con-
troller again using the AlMEUSP software which is a much better
program. You can download It here: hftp://wwwjtronk$-
d es ign . b e/ do wnlca ds/a tm e lls a . zip

Select ’he right COM port in the Parameter menu and DK7J0 ’
hr hardware compatibility, there info can be bund in the Atmel
ISP help file.

F'nally. I'd like to mention that if you used a 7ALS126 instead of o
/ -bC 1 2o or a Z4HCTJ 2o for (CIO, the controller m ay remain in
a reset condition after power up. In that case f you won't be able to
program the firmware either Please check the level at pin 9 (RESET)
°l the controller, it should be lov, during normal operation.

based VOX AC- 30 simulators but
P e rs on ally p refer th e rea I th ingf
Anyone able to help Greg?

High- In d Preamp
Dear Elektor — I have just
started to gather components
for the High-End Preamplifier
[ found in the April 2004
issue. Unfortunately I om
unable to find a mail-order
supplier for the rectifier diode
you state in ihe ports list Do
you know of a source for the
BY500, or failing that, on
alternative?

Wim Oldemans
(Netherlands)

With ihe availability of cur new
website, this type or question is
best asked in the Forum as other
readers may have valuable infor-
mation they 'would like to share
on this topic . /Aeanw hile. you
may use just about any diode
re tea a- 100 ■' 3 A. tor example
the ubiquitous < N54GS which
happens fo have rhe same dimen-
sions as the BY 500.

Corruptions St
Updates

Genera!

Readers ore advised that the
quickest way to check for cor-
rections /updates for a proj-
ect they have built is now by
way of aur svebsife at

www. elekior-eEecironics.co.uk.

In ihe Magazine section of
the website,

correcfions/updates will be
included with other article

information. You con find the
article by month/year of pub-
lication, title or production
number.

Cuk Converter

January 2005, p. 26-32
030346-1

Customers having received o
PCB no. 030346-1 from The
PCBShop are advised not to
commence construction of the
board because it contains
several design errors. The
faulty board may be identi-
fied by the absence of posi-
tion C35 next to 1C 3.
Customers affected by this
error are kindly requested to
send an email stating order
and invoice number to
sales@elektor-

electranics.co.uk. Eurocircuits
/ The PCSShop currently
hove the carreci PCB design
file and will send a free
replacement board to cus-
tomers having reported to the
above email address.

MctllBox Terms

- Pupation of reaasr '5 canescsr-
dsrsse Is si the discretion of the

Editor.

- Viewpoints expressed by corres-

pondents are nsi n&zssssf- .
^ 55 o' tii * Ed it c; cr Pud s n e
- CcfrsspDr.cence may oc- trans arse
zr 5Z-:ec J c- e~zm CMC, and

5 tv i 8 .

- dren mr. , r,g Vv d: * ::r . r e-
sponcance. pleas e quote Issue

number

- P ess c sen d your Ma:iB c x ccrre-

spontiance to:
£d - ~ ' ■ :■ _ - z : neezocn t . - : -
Etsklor Electronics. The Editor, HO.

Bey.

Tunbridge ,ir 5 “’.5 TMf. Znz'.ar.d

L : 20415 - c!4:I-:r cf-tlrc‘Jts

news & new produ :ts

Mac mini

Wmzc Dlnl €D Wymi

Dr. Thomas Scherer

Apple has managed to slim down the Mac to
make a fully-featured computer that fits in an
incredibly small box. So what is this micro' [in the
fullest sense of the word!) computer capable of?
What can we use it for? At such an attractive
price, this Mac OS X machine could easily win
over even the most hardened PC user.

Figure / . The Mac Mini ss en from ihe front A typical Apple, design: noth-
ina to ses except an indicator tiqhi a dot for optical media, and the
Aoais ioac.

i k _

Msasurmg just 165 mm (w) by
165 mm (d) by 50 mm (hj —
□bout the same size as a pile of
five CD cases — and weighing
tn at just 1 .3 kg, the Mac Mini
might at first glance be mistaken
far a plinth for a vase or perhaps
a designer feed warmer. In real*
ity it is actually a fully-fledged PC
(and not much use as a food
warmer: even under full load the
Mac mini remains coal). In typi-
cal use under partial load it is
almost inaudible and in standby
mode it is completely silent.

All about it

All ih e interfaces are broucht cut
to the rear of the enclosure [Fig-
ure 2), as is perhaps ralher
less conveniently, the power
switch. The row of slots forms the
outlet vent for the ran, which
draws in air from under the
enclosure at the front, and at the
left and right sides. The Mac
Mini should therefore net be left
on a soft surface, since this can
block the air inlets.

Not only is the enclosure aston-
ishingly small it is also pleosing
to look at and beautifully made.
There are two main par is: an alu-
minium frame around 4 mm thick
with a white plastic lid and a
base plate which carries all the
innards of the machine including
the connectors Figure 3].

The two parts are held together
by a large number or plastic
hooks attached to the base plate.

which lock into recesses in the
aluminium frame. Opening ihe
case requires rather more than
just a screwdriver, and Apple has
certainly not designed the Mac
Mini with the case-moddmq and
homebrew fraternities in mind.
The machine is dearly designed
as c ready-iogo solution with a
good on t-of-th e-box experience
as the first priority. For the name
user its idea! for downloading to
your iPod or for use as a multime-
dia workhorse ond it includes
everything you need for these
applications — and nothing
more. Expansion and modifica-
tions are intended to be done by
the manufacturer; alternatively
the machine can be ordered with
the desired expansion options,
such as extra RAM r a DVD
writer, and integrated WLAN
ana Bluetooth, already installed.
Elektor Electronics readers need
not be put oft, however: it's pas-
sible to save a Few pounds by,,
for example, expanding the
RAM yourself. A spatula with a
tine edge will open the case:
more detailed instructions and
advice on this can be found on
the Internet,

What lies within

As you can see tram Figure 3
Apple is not in the business of
selling fresh air. The design of
this u I Ira-compact computer takes
advantage of techniques used in
the manufacture or notebook
computers.

The external power supply,
which is oboui a quarter of the
size of the Mac mini itself can
deliver up to 85 W, although in
normal office-style use measure-
ments show the complete com-

i

p uter only takes less than 20 W.
The centrifugal fan also helps
make this a very quiet and
green" computer. The CPU,
mode by Freescaie Semiconduc-
tor (formerly Motorola) plays a
significant part in this too: under
full load, iis typical power con-
sumption is only 1 8 W. The
dock rate of 1 ,25 GHz might
seem rather modest in compari-
son with the clack rates typically
found on Intel processors, but It
is deceptive: she processor has,
tor example an unusually short
pipeline, just seven stages long.
Like the Pentium M series, this
makes it particularly efficient
when compared to current Pen-
tium 4 devices with their 31-
stage pipeline. The CPU also
sports a scrolled 'Altivee 5IMD
unit, which gives practically
unparalleled performance in mul-
timedia dare processing applica-
tions. Further speed-ups are
achieved using Quartz extreme
a technology which moves as
much as possible of the work
involved m producing ihe graph-
ical user interface into ihe graph-
ics processor. In terms of raw
processing power the system
probably ranks at around
2.2 GHz to 2.8 GHz in AMD-
style T4 equivalent units

depending on the model chosen.
Not the very peak or Technology
but then the competition has
nothing remotely comparable to
offer in as small an enclosure.
Also included is iLife a software
package that includes several
programs: iPhaio. far enhancing
and organising images;
iMovieHD for creating high-def-
inition video dips; iDVD, for cre-
ating and burning DVDs;
GarageBand, an incredibly
powerful teal tar creating and
experimenting with music; and a
free version of Junes, tor down-
loading and managing music
files in MP3 and AAC formats.
Also included is Apple Works, an
older pro gram for word process-
ing, spreadsheet calculations
and vector drawing.

Whai else?

It is amazing that Apple can sell
the machine or the price they
do. Indeed subtract the price of
the operating system (£99] and
the iLife multimedia package
(£49) bath of which are
included, and Apple is selling
the 1 .25 GHz version of the
hardware for only £191!

At this price, the keyboard and
mouse are not included and
must be purchased separately.
However, any keyboard ond
mouse with USB connectors will
do: you might prefer Ihe Apple
keyboard over one you can buy
elsewhere,, however as the
Apple layout is slightly different.

10

fQ.tyJ clidf&SjfS ■ 4 ‘ i U U 0

-I

Figure 2, The Mac MM seen from the war. From left to right: power
switch and inlet, network socket modem socket DVH socket two
USb 2.0 interfaces 6 -pin FireWire connector, 3.3 mm audio outout and

iff i f ®

an ov.j 1 stcf tor a tic. c h ing a Ke nsing tor lock .

Figure 3 . Inside the Mac Mini At the top h the ultra- slim optical drive,
behind which hides the 2. 5" hard disk. Ee'qw, to the left, port of the cen
trifugal black. CPU fan con be seen. Above and to the right is the main
memory: a standard FC27Q0 DDR DIMM with 1 84 pi r s

No! only is the machine suitable
for home otrice use, it makes o
reliable and virus-bee surfing sta-
tion: to date, viruses for OS X
are almost unheard of. It could
also form the heart of a quiet
and stylish home enter to inmenf
system, and already 'media cen-
're applications are popping up
on the Internet.

The machine is also suitable for
use as a small all-round Internet
server. Thanks to the underlyinq
BSD kernel tap-quality implemen-
tations of a the necessary pro-
grams ana protocols are already

in place, including Apache,
SMB and so on,, allowing its use
as a web, FTP. AFP or simple file
server. Using 'Apple Remote
Desktop (VNC) the machine
con be administered without its
mouse or keyboard. When com-
pared with the rather larger mini-
ITX systems based around the
Via EPIA CPUs the Mac Mini
offers mere comfort ond cower

j

and moreover is better value:
and that's before you even con-
sider the machine's looks.

ni:c: wv.w.aoc : e.com

Technical data and prices

CrU jVI PC-7447, alias G4 PowerPC; 512 KB L2 cache:

} . 25 GHz or 1.42 GHz

RAA \ 2d 6 MB PC 2700 DDR; expandable to maximum 1 GB

Drives DVD±R/CD RW combo or DVD+RW; 2.5 bora' disk,

40 GB or 80 GB

Interfaces FireWire; 2 USB 2.0- modem: audio cut: DVI-l (digital
and analogue via adaptor)

Software 05 X 10.37; MacOS Classic; iUfe 05 package

Miscellaneous external power supply; no keyboard or mouse supplied
£339 for 1.25 GHz/40 GB; £399 hr 1 .42 GHz/80 GB;

4x DVD±RW £70 extra ■ VVJLAjN and Bluetooth £70 extra

Figure 4. The male's cord seen from above. The RAM slot is along the
top edge. Top left s toe connector for 'the optional WlAN and Bluetooth
cord , whale on the right is the. ID t interface In the jb-efrem right earner is
" e CPU waii the heatsink removed, fphpju courtesy mazre.-.s.ds)

Figure 5. The mother bead seen from below. The large chip at the top is
Apple- specific and does the same job as the north and south bridges in a
Pa. On the tight is the ATI 9200 GPU , which has its own 32 ATS of dedi-
catea graphics memory, (photo courtesy mac rews.de)

l 1

4 2005 * slAfci e!=drc".>:s

Mmom/m Proces

Christian Tavernier

A large proportion of modern electronic circuitry uses a
microcontroller as a central element. In the design stage
for such circuits, professional and amateur designers often
wrestle with the question of which microcontroller to use,
since thousands of different types are commercially
available. This article is intended to help guide you
through the selection maze.

12

=[=Ettf ms - 4 2D05

selecting the right
microcontroller

When the author of this article started studying microcon-
trollers around 25 years ago, the answer to this question
was rather simple. There were only two or three manufac-
turers active in the field., and none of them offered more
than two or three different types. Comparing the various
types and determining which one best met your require-
ments was thus easy (and considering the state of affairs
at that time, it was actually more o question of which one
had the fewest shortcomings).

Nowadays we are overwhelmed by a Hoad of different
types from dozens of manufacturers, all descended from
various families that occasionally compete with ihe ir own
stablemales. It's a hopeless task to try to directly compare
the features of the various types of microcontrollers, since
that would require poring through thousands of data sheets.
You thus have to take a different approach, and the pur-
pose of this article is to assist you in this by suggesting a
few questions you should ask yourself. We also look at
the answers you might expect to receive to these ques-
tions and now to decide which microcontroller families
have the best features for your specific application. How-
ever, we don't wont to mislead you; we can't give you
any magic formula for selecting the most suitable micro-
controller, for the simple reason that it's not possible. In
fact, oil types of microcontrollers can handle just about
every sort of task, which Is what makes them so power-
ful. It also means that what makes or breaks an applica-
tion is not the pure performance figures of the microcon-
troller, but instead how you use It.

Survey

According to a recent American user survey conducted
among major developers of microcontroller-based appli-
cations, the relative importance of the selection criteria
can be rated as follows:

- availability of development software: 67%

- price: 51%

- number of I/O pins

and available internal peripherals: 40%

- availability of developer kits: 35%

- compatibility of the generated code: 27%

You have probably noticed that this adds up to a goad
deal more than 100%, but the survey allowed multiple
responses. The responses also give a good picture of the
problems posed by such o question and how difficult It is
to identify a predominant criterion.

Are you experienced?

The first question you must ask yourself is whether you
already hove any experience with a particular microcon-
troller family. If you do, you should concentrate your fur-
ther Interest on microcontrollers from that family unless
you ore not particularly satisfied with it. The advantage

of this approach is that you are already aware of ihe
manufacturer's peculiarities', so you don'i have to again
learn all the details of an instruction set, addressing
modes, register names, how to handle inputs and out-
puts, and so on.

If you have also invested in various development tools, such
as a development environment, a programmer and perhaps
even an emulator, you will probably be able to continue
using them (although an upgrade may be necessary).

On the other hand, if you do not already hove any experi-
ence with microcontrollers, you choice is completely open
and you can use ihe selection criteria described below.

Assembly language
or high-level language?

Although this question only involves the software, the
answer is closely related to the selected hardware. Look-
ing at it from the other direction, choosing a particular
type of software can also result in selecting hardware
that can work together with the software.

This question was irrelevant a few years ago, since at
that time the amount of program memory in microcon-
trollers was so small that the only option was program-
ming in assembly language, which is commonly but
improperly called assembler'. If you program in a high-
level language, you have to allow for ihe fact that your
code will be translated Into assembly language by a
compiler and that each line of code in a high-level lan-
guage usually generates many lines of code in assembly
language. This means that if you program in a high-level
language, you need a microcontroller with a relatively
large memory capacity.

Alihough modern compilers have made enormous
progress in optimising the generated code, they're still no
match for 'handooded' assembly language, at least
when the main activity of the code is manipulating bits in
registers, as is typically the case for microcontroller appli-
cations. Compilers for high-level languages have prob-
lems dealing with such operations. For example, consider
the instruction

output_D ( i } j

The purpose of this instruction is place the value of the 8-
bit integer i on output port D of a microcontroller. On of
the better C compilers for current PJCs translates this as
follows:

KQVL W 00
3SF 03,5
MOVWF 0 8
BCF 03.5
MGVF 20, W
MOVWF 08

4 2C05 ■ efffSsior dsctienifs

13

Fiaure i AffhaL-qh
At FLA 8 is free ir is
a full-fledged
development
environment with an
editor end
assembler and it
even includes a
simulator
Everything works
fee eth er perfectly.

i * o 1 1 zjism *= * ^

Fig ure 2.
The FCWH
development
environment for its
CCS C compiler for
FiC microcontrollers
Is also o good
example of
successful
integration

Figure 3.
The well-known
free wq re p rog r o m
IcPrcz r (v-awj'c-
p rcg.com j can he
used to program
various types of
microcontrollers
using er/ simple
programmers.

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A programmer coding in assembly language can do the
same thing using only two instructions. In this particular
(but realistic) example, using a compiler increases the
memory requirement by o factor of ihree compared with
using assembly language.

If your application requires making calculations using
digits after the decimal point or in scientific notation, or
if it employs complex mathematical functions such as
trigonometric formulas, using □ high-level language is
practically unavoidable. Anyone who has ever com-
puted a cosine in assembly language will doubtless
agree with this!

The choice of programming language thus depends pri-
marily on the sort of calculations that are made in your
application. If all the program has io do is manipulate
inputs and outputs and make simple calculations, assem-
bly language is the right choice. On the other hand, if
the program has to perform numerous calculations or use
complex mathematical functions, you should choose a
high-level language.

There is one exception to this rule: if you are experienced
in using o high-level language, even though it may not be
the mast suitable language far microcontroller applications,
you will probably want to use it in order to avoid having to
learn how to program in assembly language. However,
you should bear in mind that this will unavoidably result in
reduced processing power far your application.

Before leaving the subject of the choice of software,
we should note that with a few exceptions, fhe only
high-level languages available for microcontrollers are
Basic and C.

Even after you've chosen a programming language, you
still don't know which microcontroller family you should
select. However, one thing is already certain: if you want
to use a high-level language, you will need a relatively
large amount of program memory.

Development environment

The development environment includes several programs
ond interfaces, including:

- a text editor for writing programs;

- an assembler if you use assembly language, or a com*
piler if you use a high-level language, although a com-
piler is always accompanied by a matching assembler;

- a simulator, 'which is a program that can be used to
simulate the program for testing;

- an emulator, which is a mix of hardware and software
that can be used to test the program before It is pro-
grammed into the actual application environment;

- a programmer for programming fhe microcontroller
with the program you have developed.

Aside from fhe simulator and fhe emulator, which are
optional, these element; are indispensable. Nowadays
they ore often packaged into what is called an inte-
grated development environment' (IDE). These programs,
most of 'which run under Windows, make a polished
impression with their many windows, and they allow you
to quickly jump from the editor ro the assembler or com-
piler, or even to the simulator or emulator if they are inte-
grated info the package. The screen shots made for this
article show some examples of fhe Microchip MPLAB
environment and ihe PCWH development environment
for the C compiler from CCS.

With the exception oF the emulator and the programmer,
which partially consist of hardware that you have to pay
for, most of these tools consist entirely of software. Some
microcontroller manufacturers use a handy commercial
trick here: they make the programs available free of

14

dd.lor clctlrnrlo - 4/21135

Don't pogrom that pC, bo© load if!

Nov/ that microcontrollers with o respectable amount or pro-
gram memory are commercially ova liable, a new concept has
become popular: the boot loader.

A boot iaader is a very small program! that Is programmed
into the lav/ or high memory cf the microcontroller tilted in ihe
circuit ro be developed. This program can communicate with
the development tools (used to write ihe program code) via a
serial port or some other type of serial link, such as USB, \-C
or a CAN bus.

The boot leader program can interpret a certain number of
commands related to reading,, programming and erasing the
program memory of the associated microcontroller. The 'work-
ing principle is basically fairly simple.

When ihe program being developed is ready for testing, com-
munication with the boat loader is initiated. The boot loader
then leads ihe program code into ihe program memory of the
microcontroller, thus avoiding the need to use an external pro-
grammer.

After this operation is completed the boot loader transfers
conirol to ihe loaded program, and the user can then execute
and tesl the loaded program. A new program can be loaded

charge. That may seem strange, but the logical conse-
quence of this way of doing business is that developers
use these programs and are thus inclined to also use the
microcontrollers from the same manufacturers.

Although these programs are free, they are certainly not
second-rate software. In fact, MPLAB Es one of the best
programs the author is aware of. Beside the fact that this
environment allows you io program in assembly lan-
guage [it comes complete with an editor, assembler and
simulator), it cooperates almost automatically with compil-
ers and emulators from other manufacturers. They are so
well integrated into the development environment that
they seem to actually belong to it.

This 'generosity' with regard development tools is limited
to programming in assembly language. Practically all cur-
rent makers of compilers for high-level languages charge
money For iheir products. Fortunately, many compiler sup-
pliers (for Basic and C) make available demo versions
that are adequate for hobbyists and allow professionals
to quickly test their products.

The table accompanying this article lists alt of She devel-
opment environments available from microcontroller man-
ufacturers. You can download them and try them out
without having to use an actual microcontroller. That
gives you an opportunity to find out which of fhem are
the most user-friendly. If you wish to [or must) use a high-
level programming language, it's a goad idea to check
whether there is an integrated compiler for that lan-
guage, which further underscores the importance of
demo versions.

Finally, there's the programmer, since sooner or later you
will naturally want to program your microcontroller. The
current trend in this area is toward in-system programming
(ISP) or in-circuit serial programming (ICSP) r These tech-
niques allow ihe microcontroller to be programmed after it
has been fitted to the circuit board, using a connection
with only three or four leads. The required programmer is
very simple, and suitable designs for various microcon-
troller families have already been published in Elektor
Electronic s. The availability, price and/or difficulty of
building the programmer are thus factors you should take

using the bent loader as often as necessary (after the previ-
ous program has been erased).

The speed gain obtained by using this method is a -actor of
ten relative to the traditional method of programming,, which
naturally has a positive effect an the entire development
process.

You have probably already realised that the microcontroller
must meet a certain number cf requirements to allow a bool
loader to be used. In particular, it must have:

- sufficient program memory lo hold the boot loader in a adi-
iion lo the program being developed.

- internal support far erasing and programming the program
memory, and

- an RS232 aorr or other type of serial link, such as USB or
CAN.

If these requirements ore met, it is fairly easy to use a bool
loader. There are presently numerous freeware programs
available via the Internet for microcontroller families Inal sup-
port boot loading.

into account when selecting a microcontroller family.
Another recent development is the 'boot leader'., which is
certainly o handy too! in the development stage of a pro-
gram. We have dedicated a separate inset to (his subject.
However, boot loaders can only be used with microcon-
trollers that can program their own pregram memory. Man-
ufactures are slowly but surely employing this technique,
but many of fhem have not yet dared to take this hurdle.

In conclusion to this discussion of development tools, we
can say ihat lor a hobbyist or small company that cannot
afford to make a large investment, the availability of a
simple programmer or one that can be built al a Sow
cost, together with free development tools, will be the
decisive factor in selecting the microcontroller family.
Once again, we would like to point out that ihe accom-
panying table can help you considerably in making your
selection.

8, 16 or 32 bits?

Microcontrollers just keep on growing with regard to pro-
cessing posver. The 4-bit types have just about disap-
peared from ihe market, and current microcontrollers can
process 8-bit, ] 6-bit, or even 32-bit data. However, you
shouldn't draw the conclusion that 32-btt types are neces-
sarily the most powerful and you're archaic if you use an
8-bit microcontroller.

In fact, if your program only controls a few inputs and
outputs and doesn't use complex computations or large
databases, an 8-bit type is a better choice than a ] o-bit
or 32-bit model, Thai may sound illogical, but ihe follow-
ing example can quickly show that it isn't. If your applica-
tion uses a serial RS232 Sink, the data are treated as 8-
bit words. That's because ASCII characters are transmit-
ted via this link, and as you know, ASCII characters have
a size of seven or eight bits (standard or extended set), A
32-brt microcontroller Es at o disadvantage in such a situ-
ation, since it has to process the 8-bit data as 32-bit
words, which means 24 bits have to be masked out.

If you have to make mathematical or scientific calcula-
tions in your application, a 16-bir or 32-biS mlcrocon-

4 2CDj - elektor rbrfrcnirs

15

5etec/icn tob ! e. This
table lists the vari-
ous families from
me major manufac-
turers. The 'Core
column indicates the
type of architecture
cr processing unit
that forms the basis
of the microcon-
troller The Free
IDE column lists the
names of the devel-
opment environ-
ments in at can be
downloaded from
the related manu-
facturer sites.

Manufacturer

Internal

Data bus

Architecture

Core

Free IDE

Anofog Ob ,ke

wvtf.cn dog. rom

8 bits

ADUCSxx

GSC

8051

—

32 bits

ADUOxx

| RISC

| ARM?

—

Atutel

ViVtf.fftmtLrofTi

6 bits

AT89xxx

CISC

8051

indepo ideal progioms

8 bits

T$B7m

CISC

independent programs

G bits

AYR

RISC

—

AYR studio

16 bits

AT9hxx

RISC

AM 7/9

—

Gnus Lugk

vrtv,rimis.c<nn

32 bits

EP73xxx

RISC

ARM?

—

32 bits

FP93xxx

RISC

ARM9

—

Cygnal

rtwsiltita.tom

8 bits

CS051F

asc

8051 |

Frsexck (ex. Motorola)

vftiVf, f ree«al e.iom

8 bits

HC05

CSC

6300

—

8 bits

KCOS

QSC

6809

Code Warrior

8 bits

HOI

QSC

6809

—

16 bits

HC12

asc

—

—

16 bits

HC5t2

asc

—

Cods Worrier

16 bits

NCI 6

asc

—

—

16 bits

56800

asc

—

—

32 farts

m

CISC

68000

-

32 bits

CddRre

CISC

“

—

32 bits

WAD 100

RISC

ARM7

—

Fujitsu

1

VAV.fujitsy.tt m

8 bits

F2MC— 3

asc

—

16 bits

F2MC-16

asc

—

32 bits

FR

RiSC

-

—

Infineon

vnvmfineon.com

8 bits

C5xxx, CBxxx

asc

8051

—

16 bits

C16xxx

asc

—

—

16 bits

XC1 6xxx

asc

—

—

3! bits

ICxxx

asc

—

—

Intel

Vrt’rv.mftUom

8 bits

MCS251

CISC

soil

—

16 bit;

.',1096/296

asc

—

—

Atarim (DcHqs)

vnv maxEm-tf.com

8 bits

DSSOCxxx

asc

8051

—

8 bits

OS83(xxx

asc

805)

—

Gbits

DS89Cxxx

asc

8051

—

16 bits

urn

RISC

—

—

Microchip

vtf'tf.miaothip.tDm

8 bits

PIC 10, 12,1618

RISC

—

MPlAB

1 6 bits

diPIC

RISC

—

MFLA8

troJIer is naturally the best choice, since it can process
floating-point calculations much faster than an 8-bit
counterpart.

You might be inclined to choose a compromise solution
by selecting a 1 6-bit microcontroller. However, in light of
present developments we don't recommend this. This is
partly because a more and more 32-bit microcontrollers
are becoming available at reasonable prices, and portly
because 8-bir microcontrollers are constantly becoming
more powerful and less expensive. This makes \ 6-bit
types something of an 'odd man out'. If you wont to soy
farewell to your 8-bit microcontroller because it isn't pow-
erful enough for a particular application, you're better off
to move directly to a 32-bit microcontroller, since nowa-
days the price difference relative to 16-bit types is almost
negligible.

ROM, OTPROM, EEPROM and Flash

All of these terms stand for different types of memory that
sometimes form a specific data component of the micro-
controller. It goes without saying that microcontrollers
with EEPROM or Flash memory are preferable for one-off
use, because they are the only types that con be pro-
grammed, erased and reprogrammed electronically, up
to several thousand times if necessary.

After your prototype has been developed using a micro
controller with EEPROM or Flash memory, It is financially

attractive to use microcontrollers with one-time-program-
mable memory [OTPROM) for small-scale moss produc-
tion. These devices can be programmed using Ine same
tools os types with erasable memory, but they cannot be
erased afterwards. They are usually cheaper than their
namesakes with EEPROM or Flash memory, which are
intended to be used in the development stage.

Note: versions with different types of memory are not
always available for all types of microcontrollers from a
particular manufacturer. You should thus always consult
the manufacturer's website to check the availability of
various types of memory ror specific microcontroller
types. You should also be aware that there are microcon-
trollers designed for use in large-scale mass production,
which have ROM that can only be programmed using a
mask. However, you can forget about using such types
unless you need several thousand identical devices.

Inputs, outputs

and internal peripherals

One of the attractive aspects of microcontrollers is that
they allow the external circuitry to be kept to a minimum
or even eliminated entirely. If you know what your appli-
cation needs, then all you have to do is make o list of the
Following items:

16

ckktcr tlertromn - 4/2005

Manufacturer

Internet

Data bus

Family

Architecture

Core

FreejpE

its

VimnationaLttm

8 bits

C0P8xxx CISC

—

Wibench

1 6 bits

ERUCxxx

CISC

—

—

16 bits

CP3000

RISC

—

—

Philips

www.sc rr, : co n. d u rt crc philips.com

3 bits

PBxjuc

CISC

0051

—

16 bits

Xaxxx

CISC

—

—

32 biU

LPC20DD

RISC

ARM7

—

Rabbit Semkoridudor

M ro bb iSienji cc rcd u rt or. com

8 bits

Rabbit 2000

C15C

—

8 bits

RabbH3000

CISC

—

Renews

wisw.reneias.com

8 bits

740

□5t

—

—

16 bill

H8

CISC

—

hew

16 bits

H8S

CISC

mi

16 bill

H16C

ast

—

16 bits

7700

CISC

—

—

32 bill

HSSX

CISC

—

—

32 bits

Super H

asc

—

HEW

57

wcsfm.cocn

3 bits

515

CISC

-

Visual FIVE

8 bits

516

osc

—

8 bits

517

CISC

• *

STYD7

8 bits

5T9

CISC

m ?

16 bits

819

CISC

STVD9

16 bits

.

srio

CISC

i

32 bin

ARM?

RISC

ARJA7

—

Texas instrument

VrYirf.fi.COm

8 bits

MSCIZxxx

CISC

8051

—

1 6 bits

MSP430

1 *

asc

Eclipse

32 bin

TM547G

Rise

mi

—

Josh' bo

chips. lOi h-bo.com

8 bits

870

OSC

-

—

16 bits

900/9 ODH

CSC

,

32 bin

9 00/9 00 H

osc

~

—

iibkom {ex. Stenix)

ww.ubkonuam

8 bits

SXxx

RISC

—

lifo§

ww.iilog.com

8 bits

ZSxxx

CSC

280

—

8 bits

Z 8 Encore t

osc

Z80

—

8 bits

eZSOAdoim

CSC

280

-

- number of parallel inputs and outputs

- number and size (8, 16, or 32 bits) of necessary timers

- availability of one or more PWM ports

- availability oF an analogue/digital converter, including
resolution and number oF inputs

- availability of a synchronous serial port or SPI

- availability of interfaces for specific busses, such os
CAN, E 2 C, USB, etc,

- availability of specific interfaces, such as for driving a
dumb LCD

After you have put together this list, you can simply com-
pare it with the data for the microcontroller families that
remain after selection using your previous criteria.

In light of the large number of microcontrollers on the
market, you're bound to find a march In one of the many
available families.

If your application makes high demands on the microcon-
troller, yaur choice will almost automatically fall on a
'heavy-duty' microcontroller, which may well be too
expensive for your application. Naturally, you can also
look for a compromise solution. For Instance, if you need
an A/D converter and it isn't available in the desired
family, it may be possible to use an external converter
with an PC or SPI interface. If you need a USB port,
you'll quickly notice that your choices are limited to the
latest types, which also have all sorts of bells and whis-
tles that you probably don't need. Fortunately, excellent

external USB controllers are also available, and they can
be easily interfaced to the microcontroller you have
selected.

Speed and current consumption

Microcontroller clock rotes just keep on rising. The first
types worked at a sedate 1 MHz, but nowadays you can
find types with clock rates of 100 MHz. In our eternal
chase for better performance, we often tend to automati-
cally select the microcontroller with the highest clock
speed. Although a faster clock in principle yields a rosier
microcontroller, it's a good idea to take a broader per-
spective here,.

For a variety of reasons, you can't blindly take the clock
rate as on indication of the effective speed of a microcon-
troller. Far one thing, the dock rate is often divided inter-
nally, so the actual working frequency is almost never the
same as what the marking on the 1C might suggest.
Depending on the architecture of the microcontroller
{RISC or CISC], instructions are executed In a single clock
cycle (RISC) or in several clock cycles (CISC), where "sev-
eral' con amount to ten or more. As a concrete example,
an 8051 operating at a dock speed of 30 MHz has
lower performance than an Almel AVR operating of a
dock speed of only 10 MHz (both running the same pro
gram, of course). The 8051 has a CISC architecture and
needs 1 2 clock cycles to execute some of Its Instructions,

4/2Q05 - cEcklEr dcdranlu

17

About the author

Christ! an Tavernier is a
consulting electronic engi-
neer associated with a uni-
versify ond a legal expert
in the fields of informatics
and electronics. He has
written numerous books
ond articles ond has spe-
cialised in the area of
microcontrollers for 25
years already, so we are
pleased to be able to
draw on his experience
for this article.

a -javerr.ier-c.com

c a n rac t@ t a ve r n ier-c.com

while the AVR has a RI5C architecture and executes prac-
tical! y all instructions in a single clock cycle.

Increasing the clock speed also increases the amount of
electromagnetic interference that is radiated, and this
interference is also more difficult to control at high fre-
quencies. All electronic products ore now required to
comply with the European EMC directives, so this aspect
cannot simply be ignored.

Finally,, you shouldn't overlook the issue of power con-
sumption. The faster the microcontroller operates, the
more current It consumes. The 'speed demons' should
thus be reserved tor applications where ihe power source
is not a problem. Of course, all modern ICs are imple-
mented in MOS technology, buS that is not a guarantee
for low current consumption. You should bear in mind
that CMOS devices only consume current during switch-
ing - and the faster the clock rate, the faster they switch.

If current consumpiian is an important consideration in
your application, you should pay attention to the clock
rote, and you should also select a microcontroller with a
standby or sleep mode. In these modes the microcon-
troller is Idle, which means the current consumption is as
much as H)OG times less than in the normal operating
mode. You may be wondering what purpose it serves to
have a microcontroller that isn't doing anything. The
answer is that it simply waits until it is 'woken up', so it
can do something. This situation often occurs In many

applications involving communication with a human
being. For Instance, the only thing a programmable ther-
mostat does Is to meosure the temperature every few min-
utes and wait to see whether the user does anything with
the keypad. It can thus operate In the sleep mode for the
vast majority of the time, which in fact 3s what most such
devices actually do. That's why they can operate for
more than a year on a single penllght battery.

Lest you forget; the package

Finally, you've found the microcontroller of your dreams,
and now you're ready to start the circuit board layout.

You feverishly start searching through the data sheet for
the !C footprint, which you totally ignored up to now,.,
and thai's when you hit the snog.

Particularly if you have selected a recent microcontroller
or one with an abundance of internal peripherals, you
can usually forget about the old, familiar Dll socket, since
the number of leads far certain types of microcontrollers
con amount to more than 100.

There's thus a very good chance that your microcon-
troller Is only available in a PLCC or PGA version.

That's not such a disaster, since sockets are available
for these packages. But If the package Is difficult to fit
using manual soldering, you have a problem. The first-
generation SMDs, with a lead pitch of ! .27 mm, can
be soldered with a bit of patience and a fine-tip solder-
ing iron, but the latest SMDs with a lead pitch of
0.64 mm are practically impossible to solder without
using a soldering machine.

And even if you're still wilting to tackle ihe challenge,
manual soldering is completely Impossible with the
Increasingly popular BGA packages. If this term doesn't
mean anything to you, just imagine a small, square
ceramic plate covered with a large number af hemispher-
ical bumps, and you'll understand the problem.

Before making a final choice, it's thus a good idea to
have a good look through the manufacturer's data sheets
to see which packages are available for the selected
types. At present [early 2005), this problem is limited to
the most recent types of microcontrollers.

Ghostware microcontrollers

This doesn't mean microcontrollers born in ancient Scot-
tish castles, but simply microcontrollers that only exist on
paper. Motorola [which is now called Freescale] once
went totally overboard In this regard wilh the 68HC05
family, which promised quite a lot on paper but actually
consisted of only one or two types.

This is a secondary issue for a large company, since if
you want to order several thousand microcontrollers from
ihe catalogue, the manufacturer will actually supply them.
But if you only wont a few pieces, or maybe even just
one, it's a good idea check whether there is a distributor
who actually has them in stock (and in the right package)
before starting your design.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this article, we warned you that it
wouldn't conclude with the sentence, 'And now here's
your microcontroller.,.'. Still, we hope that after this dis-
cussion you will be able to osk and answer the right
questions on your own, after which you can make an ini-
tial selection using ihe accompanying table.

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19

byild aoiid program the MMee board

Tony Dixon

20

cfritlor t!rftro:!£5 - 4/2005

Bored with PICs, AVRs and 8051s everyone else is doing? Last month
we covered 32-bit ARM microcontrollers and the undeniable star from
all the devices discussed in that article was the Philips LPC2 1 Ox. This
month the real thing is upon us: enter ARMee, an incredibly powerful
ARM development board you can build and program yourself.

!k

Over the years Elektor Electronics have
published a number of microcontroller
development boards and tills article is
the latest in a long line of such articles.
Vtfhat's different about this article and
this design is that instead of being
based on an 8 -bit device such as a PIC
f 1). AVR |2] or 8061 [3) controller, this
design will use a 32-bit ARM microcon-
troller: the LFC210x from Philips Semi-
conductors. This device has just about
everything you could want from a micro-
controller, see the ARMee & LPC21Qx
Main Features' inset. However, we
should also mention that it lacks any
ADC interface and an external bus inter-
face. But then the LPC210x is a true
microcontroller and has no external bus
interface to extend the memory capabil-
ities using external Flash or SRAM
chips, or add new peripherals.

Hardware

The circuit diagram of the develop-
ment system is shown in Figure 1. The
motherboard may be powered from a
standard DC mains adapter capable of
supplying between 9 V and 15 V DC.
An adapter capable of supplying
around 500 mA will be more than suf-
ficient for powering the development
system board and any other reason-
able amount of hardware connected to
the development board.

On the processor daughterboard, volt-
age regulators provide the various volt-

ages required by the LPC21Gx: 1.8 V for
its CPU core and 3.3 V for its peripher-
als and I/O. The LPC210x micro has 5-
V tolerant I/O and is capable of directly
driving 5-V TTL logic.

Like many modern processors the
LPC210x provides a reset circuit inter-
nally, so an external puli-up resistor is
all that is required to finish the design.
Pushbutton S2 is available to allow for
manual resets to occur.

RS232 serial communication is pro-
vided at connector KB and the interface
is built around ICl r a MAX3232 RS232
Transceiver chip providing two driver
and two receiver circuits. Tne
MAX3232 is powered from the 3.3- V
supply and an on-board charge pump
provides the - 12 V and -12 V needed
by the RS232 interface. The board has
the option of a second RS232 interface
at connector K6 provided by the sec-
ond RS232 driver and receiver circuits
of IC1. Jumpers JP6 and JP7 should he
fitted to the correct position to enable
the second RS232 port,

If two RS232 interfaces are not
required then connector K6 can provide
a Modbus pin-compatible R3485 inter-
face. Tne RS4S5 interface is driven by
102, a MAX3G82 RS485 Transceiver
chip from Maxim, which is also pow-
ered from the 3.3-V supply Jumpers
JP6 and JP7 should be fitted to the cor-
rect position to enable the RS485 port

instead of the second RS232 port.

As already stated, the RS485 interface
is Modbus pin-compatible. However,
Modbus uses pin 5 of the 9 -way sub-D
connector as a signal line while for
RS232 pin 5 is connected to signal
ground. To overcome this problem,
jumper JP4 also needs ro be fitted cor-
rectly to select either pin 5 as an RS485
signal or as RS232 signal ground.
Connector K4 provides the option of
linking a standard alphanumeric LCD
to the system board. Tne LCD interface
shares some the same LPC2l0x I/O
pins with the 3 -way DIL switch. To use
the LCD. every switch position of the
DIL switch must be set to OS. A preset
PI is used tcyadjust the LCD contrast.
Tne LCD R/W signal pin b of K4 is tied
to 0 V thus preventing a program to
read back any data from the LCD.
Therefore a program, should use a sim-
ple delay to allow the LCD sufficient
time to process its last command. Dig-
ital I/O lines P0.22 and PG.23 control
the LCD RS anti E signals respectively.
If the LCD module has an inreoiated

"W* -

backlight it may be powered through
current limiting resistor R22.

An array of 16 LEDs (D1-D16) is cro-
wded on the board. The LEDs are con-
nected to the first 16 digital input / out-
put (I/O) lines of the LPC21Gx and can
be used to indicate status or monitor
peripheral activity such as activity on
the UARTs. LED D! is connected to

4 21) 05 - ek>L:i elstlfctia

21

ARMee & LPC210x Main Features

LPC21 Ox (2104/2105/2106):

- 1 6/32-bit ARM7TDMI-5 processor core

- 128 kB program Flash memory

- 1 6/32/64 kB SRAM data memory

- ISP and IAP

- digital I/O; 2 UARTs

- SPI and DC interfaces

- fimer capture and PWM outputs
-JTA.G debugging interface

ARMee Development System:

- direct lineage with earlier Eiekfor Electronics development
systems

- detachable processor module available ready-stuffed with

LPC2106

- LEDs far viewing port status

- 8-way DJL switch for switch inputs

- connector for linking to o standard alphanumeric LCD mod-
ule

- real-war Id connectivity via two 9-way sul>D connectors:

2 x RS232 ar I x RS232 and

1 x Modbus pin-compatible RS485

- DIN4 I 6 1 2 I/O expansion connector on motherboard

- 160x100 mm Euro card

- Free multi-platform GNU GCC C compilers

- Wide selection of free and commercial ARM development
software

PG.GQ, LED D2 to R01 and so on. It
should be noted that the LEDs also
share the LPC210x I O pins with other
functions such as the UARTG and
UAETI.

The LEDs are divided into two groups
of 8. The first group, D1-D8 are enabled
by juniper JP1 connecting them to 0 V
and the second group D8-D16 are
enabled by juniper JP2 again connect-
ing them to 0 V.

A n 8 - w ay D IL $\ v 1 1 c h , ST sh are s i he
same LPC2l0x I/O pins as the LCD
interface connector and should only be
used if no LCD module is fitted to the
system. You may use this switch for
debugging purposes or use it as a con-
figuration switch.

On the motherboard a DIN41S12 A-C
connector, K2 r is available for the con-
nection of external circuitry to the
development system. This connector
carries the voltage supply rails -B V
and —3.3 V. dock and reset signals and
all 32 I/O sicrnals from the LPC2 iOx.

■p>

Tne connector also carries signals for
separate 1 2 C and SPI interfaces. It
should be noted that on the LPC210x
an I O pin may provide more than one
function, in this case the I/O pm may
be shared with the UAJRT I 2 C, SPI or
other signals. It should also be noted
that the on board LEDs. 8-way OIL
switch and LCD connection also share
I/O signals on the DIN41612 connector.

Printed si rev it
boards

The PCS artwork for the motherboard
and detachable processor board is
shown in Figure 2.

The processor daughterboard is avail-

able ready-built as item 040444-91
(with LPC21Q6 fitted), or bare as item
040444-1; see Readers Services pages
or ao to our Online Shoo.

■Si-p' wr

Tne LPC210x is a 48-pm surface mount
device (SLID) and will need to be sol-
dered directly to the PCS. Tne bare

PCB G 40444-1 comes pre -tinned. Posi-
tion ICl carefully onto the SLID pads ;
then using a fine tipped soldering iron,
solder each corner of the IC. It you are
happy with the IC's position then con-
tinue and carefully solder the rest of
the IC pins. Solder carefully, but don't
worry If excess solder connects the

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Figure LGrcurr diagram of the ARfAee Development System, Note that the
processor module is detachable!

22

cldhr elfdrodu ■ j/2&D5

pins. Using some fresh desolcier braid
apply to each solder bridge and heat
udth a soldering iron for a moment,
allowing the braid to absorb the solder
from the bridge. Once the bridge is
removed carefully resoider with the
Sue tipped soldering iron.

The bare motherboard PCB is available
ready-made from out Readers Services

and online Shop as item no. 040444-2.
When fitting components to the PCB,
do observe the polarities of the diodes,
the electrolytic capacitors and the
LEDs. IC1 and IC3 on the motherboard
can be fitted into sockets. With all
components are fitted do one last
visual inspection and compare the fruit
of your efforts with our working proto-

type shown in Figure 3 before apply-
ing power to the board.

Programming ¥&&§§

The LPC210x is easily programmed
using the C programming language, A
number of commercial C- Compilers are
available for the ARM architecture ( see

* 5 C J S -t!=har s!=rircnf«

23

web links). Those users who do nor
want ro purchase a commercial C-com-
piler can use the GNU G- Compiler.
Tills is an open-source C -compiler that
is considered by many as good as most
of the commercial offerings. The down-
side of using the GNU compiler is that
you don't have the polished installation
process of a commercial compiler.

The LPC210x IC itself can be pro-

grammed using the on-board J TAG or
the internal Serial Boot Loader.

The JTAG interface can be used for
more than just programming the chip. It
cam be used to debug a program during
execution on LPC21Gx. To use the JTAG
interface, a JTAG debugging interface

module is required to connect between
theLPC210x development system and
a host PC. There are several low cost
commercial JTAG interface modules
available, as well as several non- com-
mercial interpretations. These can he
found though a simple search on the
web, or by checking out the web links
provided at the end of this article.

If JTAG debugging is not required then

Figure 2a . FCB design f or the Eurocard- size ARMee motherboard.

COMPONENTS

LIST

ARMee motherboard
Resistors:

R1 “ 8-way lOkQ S1L array
R2-RI7 - ^kn

R18.R19.R20.R26..R27 - lOk.Q

R21 - 1 kC5

R22 - 3311

R23 = 1 20 Q

R24,R25 — see text

FI = 1 OkD prase?

Capacitors:

C1-C5,C8,C9 = lOOnF
C6 = lOOpF 25V, radial
C 7 = 1 0 jjF 25V, radial

Semiconductors:

D1-D16,D18 = LED, Sow current 3mm

D17 = 1N4007

SCI = MAX3232CFE

1C2 - 7805

IC3 = MAX3082CP

Miscellaneous:

JP1 JP2 JP3 JP5 = 2-way pinheadar v/ilh
jumper

JP4JP6 JP7 = 3-way pir.heoder with
jumper

K i = 20- way boxheader

K2 = 2x3 2-way DIN416 I 2 AC connector

K3 = mains adapter connector, PCS
mount

K4 - general purpose LCD module., 2x16
characters

K5,K6 = 9-way sub-D socket (female),
angled, PCB mount

K7,K8 - 20-way SIL socket

5 1 = 8-way DIP switch

52 = pushbutton, PCB mount, e.g., DT56

Heatsink, Fischer SKI 04 25,, 4 STC

FCB, order cade 040444-2

Disk, project software (LEDTesI), order
code 040444-1 1 or Free Download

24

dikiuf s'fiticdcs - 4/2DD5

the LPC21Gx can be programmed
using the built-in serial boot loader.
This allows the 5 digital J O lines used
by the JTAG interface to be used for
something else.

Serto/ leader

To use tire serial hoot loader jumper JF3
needs to be fined. JP3 pulls PQ.14 to

ground and releasing the LPC210x from
reset forces the LPC21Gx to execute an
internal serial boot loader program from
the top 8 k of its Flash memory.

Using a free PC program provided by
Philips Semiconductor ( Figure 4) and
a serial cable connected between a
host PC and UARTO of the LPG21Gx
(R3232 Port 1 on the ARMee board)

allot vs the progrEmiming of the
LPC210x to take place.

Using ©MU <&€€
with ARM PF&tiessors

“V'/hy do we want to use the GNU GCC
compiler?" you may ask? Well for a
start the tools by virtue of their begin-
nings and the method of their commu-

O

O 0

o

0

©

1 v. .15 - clbilt'f 'S^lUcms

25

Figure 2b, FCB design for the detachable

COMPONENTS

LIST

LPC2l0x daughterboard
Capacitors:

C1,QV,C5 = 1 OOnF, shape 0805
C2.C3 = 33pF. snaps 0805
C6.C7.C8 = IQpF 16 V. radial

Semiconductors:

1C l - LFC210* (2104/2105/2106]
IC2 * LMS81 17AMP-3.3
IC3 = LM$8 1 1 7AMP-I . 8

Miscellaneous:

K1,K2 - 20-way SIL pinheader
XT - 1 6MHz quariz crystal
PC8 (bare), order code 040444-1
PCS (ready populated, with LPC2106)
order code 040444-91

Figure 3, Our finished and tested prototype of the ARMee Development Score/. The processor module con be migrated to the
to rg e t app / lea tic n !

26

clekJor dfetron'ts - 4 MS

nal user support they are essentially
provided for free at the Free Software
Foundation (FSF) web site. These tools
are made available through the GNU
project under the GNU general public
license. Historically, the software from
GNU /FSF was aimed at [he UNIX oper-
ating system and GNU is short for
"GNU's Not Unix 1 , while GCC is short
for "GNU Compiler Collection',

GNU GCC can be found of dozens of
different hosr platforms from Linux,

Microsoft Windows, UNIX and Solaris
and many others. GNU GCC has been
targeted to produce executables for
many different microprocessor archi-
tectures ranging from Intel/AMD x86, figure J. riash Downloader from Philips.

Simple Input / Outpu Bus - SIOB

The Simple Input / Ouipui Bus (SIOB) is about os sim pb as an expansion bus can be. 32 digital I/O signals are brought to a
DINA 1 61 2 board connector and made available as an expansion port. The digital I/O lines may be either inputs or outputs
dependant on ine type of expansion interface required. The programmer of the development board is responsible far configur-
ing the data direction register of the microcontroller according to their digital I/O requirement.

In addition to she digital I/O signals the SIOB also offers serial expansion in the form of a SPI and l?C interface. A small num-
ber of SPI chip select signals are also present on the bus. The presence of the SPi and \ 2 C interfaces will allow the development
system to be expanded in many ways. For example a system could be expanded with PC hosed Analogue to Digital (ADC) and
Digital to Analogue [DAC] converters or SPI driven digital I/O.

The bus is completed by the +5 V and +3.3 V power signals, dock signal, RESET and RESET

One final note on ine 3IOB r ihe signal pins of the LP^210x are not only used for digital I/O but have other functions such as
UART, PC SPI, PWM, Timer Captu re J 3 aG aeouggEng etc. Where a signal pm is used to soy drive a UARf interface it will no
longer be available as a digital I/O signal and thus no longer be available for the SIOB. If o system requires the use of the
DART, JTAG debugging ana LCD interfaces then there will be very few digital I/O signals available for ihe 5108. In such cases
system expansion is best done through the PC or SPI interfaces available on the SIOB,

Motorola 63x00. PowerPC, ABM 7 and
ARM9w GNU GCC also covers several
microcontroller architectures, some of
these being TTs MSF430, Atmel’s AVR
and Motorola's 68HC1 1.

Another aood reason is buos. software

w ■

bugs. The GNU tool chain gets updated
regularly meaning any reported prob-
lems are fixed relatively fast.

Your next question might be "What's
the downside of using GNU GCC?"
Well, for a start it's the staggering
range of hosts and targets available.
You have to check if GCC is available
for your host platform, next check if
your target processor is available and
finally decide if you want ro build (i.e.,
compile) the GCC yourself or want a
pre -built binary. However, for the most
part you will find the most common
target architectures available for both.
Win32 and Linux hosts as both source
code and binaries. Rut one word of
warning, don't expect to find a fancy

-*=. Zjt

z

af v \ =

7’ii leill

v : - : -=zZz±;L=.z. iwi

- rZ ; i"

y. c :

li-IHir.

iJ „■ Sj.-

E

: :Zm iIVi

• • : -J ■

!j“s-

33=

r ~

r

11 , l vF;r T- J. sr

r Sana ikx nM fee

,-^-= iff -a r_=.

F:i-

'-TLT.-I -XT ! VwiFji

-'-.u.t r jjBeWS - t — r jmrii:

3

v ■:

-* a*-! v .j ^ ,

-i

.

| Ejj Liyij ^HJ GC. I - - J 71 IT

Figure D. VIDE Programmer's Editor.

4* 2295 -5 Yu-:: dcflinnia

27

More ARM binufils.

addr2lina

ar

gprof

nlmconv

nm

ranfib

readelf

size

strings

strip

Converts addresses into filenames and line numbers.

Archiving utility (creating, modifying and extracting from orchivss)
Displays profiling information*

Converts object code into an NLM.

Lists symbols from object files.

Generates an index to the contents of an archive.

Displays information from any ELF format object file.

Lists the section sizes of an object or archive file.

Lists printable strings from files.

Discards symbols.

installation program or an Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) —
this is "storm trooper' DIY develop-
ment. If you want a fancy installer and
IDE check out one of the companies
that offer ore -configured, ready to go
versions of the GNU tools., GNU-X tools
from i.licro cross and GMUPro from Red-
hat axe two examples of commercial
GNU toots,

If you wanted to build your own bina-
ries then download them from the

FSF/G-NU web site and follow the
insrructions provided on the site. How-
ever, we will rake one of the many pre-
built binaries and use if to compile our
C code with.

For our example we will use the GNU
GCC version 3,4 Win32 pre-built bina-
ries from www. gnuarm . com. You can
select the Linux host if you wish. Other
pre-buiit binaries are available on the
web, Google a search with [GNTJJ,
[ARM] and [binaries] and see how

Commercial offerings

If you are happy to provide a few personal derails to Keil you can freely down-
load their uVision IDE and a pre-built copy of GNU tools. These tools are unre-
slrlcted for generating code wish the only limitation [at this time] is that the debug-
ger is limited to 16 k program size. Tihe Keil tools are based around their u Vision
3 IDE the screendump shows the IDE configured for GNU GCC.

Redhot and Microcross provide pre-built GNU tool chains for your chosen target
and host platform. Rowley Associates also provide □ commercial development
environment based on the GNU tool chain but using their own libraries and IDE.

- 1 T1 -

£ ^ y Q

3 M •« -

<3 -

^ jO; ! l

> M\

many hits you get. So let's download
the binaries from GNUARM and install
them on our PC.

GNU C Compiler

Go to the GNUARlv! sub -directory you
installed, look down the list of pro-
gram files and you will see a program
called arm-eli-gcc.exe. Similarly, if you
v. y ere using a microprocessor based on
the SH3 architecture you would expect
to find sh 3- elfs-gcc . exe in the sub-
directory.

Now, arm-el f-gcc is a GNU GCC com-
piler targeted for the ARM architecture
using the Extended Linker Format (ELF \
object file format. If you were using the
Common Object File Format (CGFT) you
would rind aim-cofi-ucc.exe. ELF and
COFF are two different formats of file
structure that the GCC can save the
compiler object output to.

Our first task is to make sure the GCC
compiler has been correctly installed.
A quick test is to display the version
message from the GCC compiler. Open
a Command Window or MS-DOS win-
dow and type the command arm-elf-
gcc -v. If you don't see the GCC ver-
sion message, then you most likely
need to add the GCC directory to our
environment path.

Tb use the compiler, open a DOS win-
dow and type

arm- elf - gc c -c le dt st . c

The actual prooxam is found in the

>ii w

“LEDTest - an example' inset. An

archive file containing the assembly
code, linker and compiler result hies is
available as a free download vrith this
article (040444-11).

The GCC compiler has a raft of options
we can invoke, too many to list in this
article! Some of the main command
line options are:

-c for compile only and do

not link the object file:
-Wall to enable every warning

and error conditions the
compiler will produce;

-o filename to change the hie name of
the object file produced;
-S to produce an assembly

listing interspaced with
me original C code:

-g to include debugging

information*

The command

aim-elf-gcc -Wall ledtst.c -o ledtst

Configuring Keil uVtsion IDE for GNU GCC

will faithfully compile leek si. c with all
compiler warnings enabled and pro-

28

either dctfr&nTnN 2C-05

cioce an object file called ledtst.o .
When we invoke GGC compiler, it nor-
mally does the preprocessing, compi-
lation . assembly and linking. However
we can tel] the compiler not to link any
of the object files by using -c option.
Where this is done we can use the
GNU linker to combine our object files
into a single output file.

GNU Linker

The object files produced during the
compilation stage are by themselves
incomplete. We still need to resolve
internal variables and function refer-
ences for the object files and this is
where the linker comes in. The linker’s
job is to combine the object files and
resolve any unresolved symbols and
function references.

The command line GNU link er Id (or
aim-eli-ld) takes the names of the
object files to be linked together as
arguments, as well as any options and
outputs a single relocatable object tile.
If we had several files to compile and
link we might type:

arm-elf-gcc -c module! .c
arm-elf-gcc -c modules. c
arm-elf-gcc -c modules. c

arm-elf- Id module l.o modules. o mod-
ules. o -o prog!

There are no memory addresses
assigned to the code and data sections
in the relocatable object file. To do this
we need a locator program that will
assign physical memory addresses to
each code and data sections. The GNU
linker has a built-in locator function
that can locate the cede and data sec-
tions of the program to specific areas
of memory, which results in an
absolutely located binary image.

We can now download this binary'
image to our development system.
The GNU linker includes a scripting
language that can be used to conirol
the linking process and the exact order
of the code and data sections within
the relocatable program. We can also
assign memory address to the code
and data sections. We call a script file
by using the command line option -T
followed by the name of the script file,
for example:

arm-elf-id -Tipc2l06-rom,ld

GNU Make

The make file is used to mechanise the
compilation process. In essence, the
make utility folio tvs a user defined set
of rules and these rules are processed

in sequence. For instance, instead of
typing the four command lines for the
linker example shown previously we
would type and save these commands
into separate text file makefile or
another suitable filename. To compile
this example we would type:

make makefile

The Make utility will determine what
source code files have changed since
the last time is was run and will only
compile those changed files. You may
also include conditional compilation
choices by making use of makes pre-
processor functions.

De£>U00mgf

The GNU GCC tool chain also comes
with a command line debugging tool
called GDB,

GNU GDB is one of those tools whose
operation and large number of options
could fill an entire book, let alone a sin-
gle article. We do not intend to use
GDB with the ARMee Development
Board, instead you will be using the
Flash downloader provided Philips
[Figure 4), Therefore, for this article we
skim over most of GDB functionality
but those readers wanting more infor-
mation on GNU GDB are referred to the
web where lurks Bill Gatlin's excellent
introduction.

In essence GDB is a source debugger.
It is connected to a target board
through a serial connection where It
communicates and interacts with a
monitor type program on the target
board. To launch GDB type:

arm-elf- gdb Iedtst

Once G-DB is running you will be work-
ing within the G-DB console where the
debugging commands will be typed.
Next, you can load your program 10 the
target board by using the command

(gdb} load

Once loaded, you can step through
your source code, set break points,
investigate what functions were called
to get to the current source line or use
one of the other debugging options
GDB offers.

©s?laer Pools

The GNU tool chain also includes a
number of other tools, the bin utils,
which we can us during our develop-
ment. Two of the most useful tools are
objeopy and oh j dump.

The objeopy (or a im-elf-objcopy) utility
is used to translate object files from
one format to another format. For
example, we can translate a file from
binary image into s- re cord format.

arm- elf- objeopy -O srec ledtst.o
ledtst.slO

while the obi dump (or ar m-elf-obj-
dump) utility can be used to disassem-
bly the object files. With the disassem-
bled file you can see where the linker
has located the various text, data and
bss sections of our object file.

arm- elf- ob j do mp . — disas s em b 1 e

ledtst.o

You may also add source code to the

Sfart-up file

To use our compiled C program we first need fa initialise ins processors siack
pointers and memory settings. A separate object tile called the start up file usually
does this. Typically a siart up file will be called startup. s. boat s or crtO.s. The siarl
up file is linked to the rest of the compiled object files during the program, linking
stage. Check the example files from the LPC2000 group on Yahoo for trlO.s or
boohs, which are typical examples of ARM start up files.

The start up code must provide the following:

1 . Disable all interrupts.

2. Copy initialised variables from ROM to RAM.

3. Zero uninitialised data variables.

4. Allocate space far and initialise stack area.

5. Initialise the stack,

6. Create and initialise the heap area,

7. Enable interrupts,

8. Jump to main (j.

' 05 ■ ekMor slsifionks

29

disassembled output by adding ihe
option -S to the command line, li you
want to view the symbol table of our
object file, simply include i he — syms
option to the command line.

Some of the GNU other binut ils are
listed in Table 1.

me

L DTest - an example using the ARMee hoard

In ihe embedded development community me first program you usually write with
a new compiler or target platform is a LED-ftashing program. This is as ubiquitous
as the hello world program is for PC development and we will be no different.
Our example program will consist of a C program that will Hash one rhe LEDs an
the ARMee development board. See Listing 1 1

Include the Philips ARM LPC2100 C header file. ARM start up file [bool.o] and
GCC linker script (Ipc2 106-romJd) in the same directory as our LED test program.
Pram the command line prompt, type the Following GCC commands:

V F h en ins t aile d , G MU doe sn t pro vi d e
us with any form of integrated devel-
opment environment (IDE). To resolve
this we could install VIDE Figure 5),
one of the more popular IDEs that can
be used with the GNU tool chain.

VIDE provides us with a pro examiners
text editor and a GUI for running the
GNU tools. Other IDEs, both free and
commercial, are available for us to use
with our GNU tools. Do a search of the
web to see what s out there, or use the
Forum on our website to get in touch
with fellow ART, I twisters.

arm-elf-gcc -c. ledbtc

arm-eif-ld -T!pc2 \ 06-rom.ld -noaiartfiles, -nasldlib -s o led baot.o Sedhi.o
□ rm-elF-objcopy — oulpur-target ihex lest teshhex

We should now have □ compiled and linked hex file ready For sending to ihe
ARMee Development board. To save retyping ihe GCC commands, we could type
Ihe above GCC commands into a text editor and save them as a batch file
ledtst.bat or create a Makefile.

Finally, instead of using the GDB debugging tool included with GNU GCC we will
op ro use the simple Flash download provided by Philips Semiconductor, Figure 4.
Select the Filename of our LED hex file and upload to ihe target board.

Once uploaded, press reset on the ARMee heard and LED D I should start to flash.

Congratulations! You've have successfully comp Led linked and uploaded our test
program using the GNU GCC compiler and tools.

¥ include _?C2 I GO .h r '

References:

1 . FiCee Development System, Elekror
Electronics February 2003.

2 . AV Rss D S' v e a pmerk System E I e k E a r
Electronics March 2003.

2. 09$ 62 5 2 Flash Microcontra her

Bccrc. cieMor Electronics December
2001.

For further reading

) . Programming Embedded Systems in C
anc C++, Michael Ball' O Reiliy
(wv, vcoreCy.tomf

2. An In trad uc lion te GCC Brian J.
Gough foreword by Richard M.
Stallman; pdf copy ar
http :j / ww. n erw o r k-
theory.co.uk , gec 'intro

void Delay [unsigned long a )
{

while (— a 1=0);

}

inc "air. [void) {

r * System I nit T ■

/* I nit PL L */

SCB_PLLCFG = 0x23;

£CB_?LLF EED = OxAA? SCBPLLFEED = 0x55;

SCB PEECOli = 0x0 1 ; /* Enable ?LL */

SCE FLLFE ZD = QxAA; ECE ELLFEED = 0x55;

Websites:

a .'. w. geccisies.com , ■ to n y a i xo n 2 k 1 index,
htmr i ARM.ee support website)

wwv/.g nu.org [Mia in GNU web site)

■.vww.faf.org (Free Software Foundolion
web sliej

■ts^vw, gn trarm.com (GNU Binaries ter
ARM processors)

http:/ / groups.yohoo. cam/ group/ !pc200
0/ (Philips LPC2000 ARM Discussion
Group)

h rf p : / / g ro u ps .yahcQ.com/gro u p gnuarrr.
/ {GNU ARM Discussion Group)

'.v.-/ . o h] sc ic e ni ro I xo m / vide.htm ( V 1 D E
Windows IDE)

www.bi lgolHff.com (Exce lent GNU
tutorials by Bill GatlifF)

http: / , '.v ■*■/ w. dfeamislife.com/arm /

(LFC2 ' 06 tutorials by Sew)

►■Avw keil.cGm |GNU GCC and
Comm ere -a 1 C-Cc mp i lers]

wv,- w-_rovdey_co.uk (GNU GCC and
Commercial C-Com oilers)

v/ww.red hat.co.uk (Commercial GNU
GCC tad chains)

VAvv/.micrceross. co.uk (Commercial GNU

while { l i ECS Plj_S TAT L PL0CK ) ); /* Wait for ELI ro lock *

5C3 FLLC0U - 0x03 ; T Connect BIT. ae clock source * /

SCH PLLFEED = QxAA; 3CB PLLFEED = 0x55 ;

T Irtec MAJt 5 Flash re" cry
MAKJ-DtflCR*0x2 ;
>*A3!j:AMTIH-0x4;
5CB_VPBDIV=Qxl;

/* loft GPIO 1 /

GPIGI0DXR = 0x0000 00 001;
G?1Q_I0SET |= 0x000000 QI;

recch T

t f 2,ash ~

T FCLK = GCIiK T

/* FO.O as output */
T LED off T /

M main loop T .
while (I) {

GDIO_TOSET |= OxQQOOOOQl; T LED off
Delay ( 100QGG0 » ;

G?TO_IOCLK |= 0x00000001; /* LED on */

Delay ( 2000000);

30

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E NEC D224S £ 5 V s S 3 ■ “ le da : e New
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INDUSTRIAL COMPUTERS

SOFTWARE SPECIALS

TEST EQUIPMENT & SPECIAL INTEREST ITEMS

Unless marked NEW. items In
this section are pre owned.

MfTSUBUSHI FA3445ETKL ,'nd sce-z SVGA rror.bira £245
FAR H E LL DC © SO Am pc. bench Pt?Aer Su ppfies £93 5

FARfiELL 4P3C-E3 0-2SV 22 3 80 Ames ZEmci Szppv £1B5fl
KIRGSHfU, CZ40&1 G-50V @ DC 20=0 Amps - N E'/7 £ 395 0

1 kiV to 400 k »V - 400 Hz 3 jtfisie sources - ex stock £P DA

IBM 8230 Typ£ 1 . Tc*en ring bass unvt driver £780

Wayne Kerr RA200 Audio free res cones analyser £2500

UiFODEC 1U 24 pod. RJ45 fiettvofk oatebpeneis. 4TH 93 £49

3COM 16S70 12 Pori Ethernet hub - RD45 conrectws ?LD97 £69

3COM 16 57 1 24 Pud £ memet hub - R245 cc n ^ectofs £89

3 CO ti\ 1 67 DO B Port Ethernet huh - RUES cormeotcrs N B V £3 3

IBM 53F5501 "z.-:or R ~z ICG 2D zz~. zze mz-zz es £POA

IBM MAH Taken rng clstribift^n pans 522 5-23-5: EC \ £45

Al Jil 50 1 Low c Martioft CtecS ; atsr 9Hz ® 330Khz s IEEE I/O £559
ALLGON 6360.1 -cC ^iaBB MHz hybrid poaef comSwers £260
Trend DSA 274 Cats Ana. vser v.'th G7C312W £4 v c £ P Q A

II a rco ni 6310 Progmmmatfe 2 to 22 GHz sweep ceneretef £45 0 0
Maiccrci 2Q22C ' CiKHz-lGHz RF sipha y=:~ = -^ m .z- £1550

HP 1 £50 3 Lome Ana . ? 3 er £37 £ 0

HP37H1A Pattern ceqeratr i HP3762A E~r Dalez'zr £POA

HP6321A C_= F:z"cram-az □ GP.3 PSD 1-7 . ‘E0 £1E00

H P62 64 R s : k meu Hx 5 '■ ^ : s C^2 0 V £ 2GA mstered PS U £475

HP84121 A DC ts22 GHz feur channsS «ssf s=- £POA

H P813QA opt 020 300 MHz pulse generator. GPIB etc £7900

HP Al r A0 S pen HPGL tic h sceed d rum ptetters - from £550
HP DRAFTMASTER 1 S pen high speed p-cds: £750

EG+G Braokd sal &5035C Free; mon zV; came £1BOO

Kei thlcy 590 C V cap 5 ptc-r , z . tz-z » am > ser £P O A

Raca 1 1 C R4 0 z _ a 4Q channel vtsw? race -de r avstem £37 5 Q

Rskera 4 5 KVA 3 ph Cn J~c UPS - Nsa z andrcc E45Q0

Emerson AP 1 30 2 5KVA Lnducbiat speciUPS £1493

Mann Tally MT645 H.gh speed z s pr w £2200

Inlel SBC 4SEH335E :.s4B5 system SMcRsm £945

£19 50
£1150
£1450
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ALL £FOA
£550

HPED30AG2.:: 7 CC z 17 Amps
Intel SBC 4S5 125C0B Ernsnzed
Nikon HFXrtl . Ec~ zzzii
PHEUP3 PM 55 IB pro. Tv
Motorola VME B .-C E z'snis
Trio 0-:5 .77 Freer
Fujitsu M2041R 600 LPM V" £1950

firfftsu !*12Q41D 600 LPJ H ? prin ra r with ne?Awk inisif ace £ 1 2 50

Siemens K440O 64Kb to 14tH.lb denant snalyser £29=0

Perkin Elmer 2330 Intmied spectrophotzsrneter £500

Po rk I n E I m □ r 5 9 7 r.Aareq = pectnz p z z tz mete r £3 50 0

VG ElDctno nics 1035 TELETEXT De-zco ~ z V=rg - Meter £3250
Ugh fSand 60 output high ^p-zc 2n mck mount VxJ c-o V D A‘s £495
Sekonic SD 150K 18 idler - -3 z z ':g Hybrid chart r&conte r £1995
B^K 2533 M ■croph'Wis era amp £200

Taylor Hobscn Ts .suffsrrptilis: r&ca-Asr £750

ADC SS200 Ca conffknude gas dsLSJ'zr J monitor £1450

SBC A/,120 73 P P M ? ( tetsr (Ernes 1 Turner) -+■ drive e'etben'es £ 75
AJfRlTSU 9654A GzLze GC-2.sG-b vic’vefcrm rn-enltcr £56=0
AR RFTS U ML93A c z 1 : z dz ,ve - it clc r £990

ARRITSU f Ore opts characteosbo test sz-1 EPOA

Rd5 FTUZ rkJ u nrt £650

R5S SBUF-E1 Vision nriKMator £775

WILTRON 6530 B m 2 - 22 G Hz R - s-v ss p ge ns t sloe £ 57 50

TEK 2445 1 50 MHz 4 trace cscStescops £1250

TEK 2485 3Q0 Mhz 300 MHz csaldsmpe ret* rawall £ 1 9 5 5
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Almost every electronic circuit contains bipolar transistors,

FETs or diodes. Most electronics hobbyists have a supply of
such components removed from old circuit boards. A tester

that can be used to sort out the leads and measure the
characteristics is thus a handy tool.

- - — -

■

SC-ftnalyser 2885
Elektor Rev 1.8e

;

■h.

if the markings on the device can still
he read. It's usually possible 10 look up
its technical characteristics in a data
book. But if the markings are vague or
completely missing, you can only
guess. Using this particularly handy
tester, you can quickly identify the
most commonly used types of semi-
conductor devices (bipolar transistors,
JFETs, MOSFETs and diodes:, includ-
ing SMD components. Besides identi-
fying the leads, the tester calculates
various parameters, such as H EE for
bipolar transistors., VV^- , I DSS and
Rzsz:; - or JEETs, the threshold voltage
for IvIOSFETh and the forward cur-
rent voltage and leakage current for
diodes. All of this information is
clearly displayed on an LCD (compati-
ble) screen.

Operating principle

Each of the three leads of the unknown
device is connected to ground or -5 V
via resistors with knov; values. The fol-
lowing resistance values can be used:
100 a 1 kU 5.6 k Q, and 100 Mil. For
each configuration, three voltages are
measured using a PIC16F876 mfcro-
cont roller.

The microcontroller always siarrs with
a quick, rough measurement to deter-
mine whether the device is a bipolar
transistor. This is done by connecting
two of the three transistor leads io
ground while the third lead is con-
nected to -5 V via a 5.6-kQ resistor.
The microcontroller measures the volt-
age across the resistor and stores the
measured value. Two more measure-
ments of this sort are made with dif-
ferent lead sequences, with each
measurement being made at the junc-
tion of the 5.6-kQ resistor and the Tran-
sistor. This yields three values that
have a specific relat ion shit} to the
Transistor type.

Table 1 shows the values the: should
theoretically be measured for NPN and
PNP transistors. Here the minus sign
corresponds to a connection to ground
via a 10Q-Q resistor, and me oius sian
stands for a connection to -5 V via a
5,6-Ml resisior. An NPN transistor
gives two values of approximately 5 V
and one of approximately 0,7 V, while
a PNP transistor gives a single value of
5 V and two values of 0.7 V.

The firsr test is also sufficient to identify
the base lead of the transistor, since it
is the lead whose value differs from the
values for the other two leads. Once

SJi

nilioi

mec

!e|.

■sure

ments

Type

E

B

c

measured

value

NPN

—

—

+

5 v

T

_

5 V

—

0.7 V

PNP

—

—

T

0.7 V

-r

—

0.7 V

+

5V

the transistor has been identified in
this manner, it is tested for current
gain. As the positions of the emitter
and collector are not known, the cur-
rent gain is measured for each of the
two possible combinations. The ulti-
mate value is taken to be the greater of
the two measured values.

If the measured voltages do not match
any of the combinations in Table 1,
the device is subjected to special
tests for oilier types of components
(MOSFET, diode and JFET). To rest
whether the device is a MOSFET, the
current gain is measured in a similar
manner for all six of the possible lead
arrangements. However, some bipolar
transistors also yield results that dif-
fer from those shown in Table 1. This
primarily occurs with transistors hav-
ing a protection diode between the
collector and the emitter. For such
transistors, the current gain is also
measured for all six of ibe possible
arrangements.

Limitations

To avoid possible misunderstand-
ings, we must say up front that the
SC Analyser 2005 cannot be used to
measure thryistors or Darlington
transistors.

Measuring eurretat
gain $@r bipolar
transistors

The measurements described above
have identified the base lead of the
transistor, and now the other two leads
are identified by connecting the tran-
sistor in a comm on -collector configura-
tion if it is a bipolar transistor, or in a
source-follower configuration if it is a
MOSFET (see Figure 1).

The gain of the transistor is deter-
mined by measuring V B and V £ . The
formulas for this parameter are:

V E = R z x (jj + 1 ) ■ (V E 4 - Rg }
p= [(V E ^ (V B ■■ R e )1-1

The circuit can measure gain values
over a ranoe of 5 to SS9. An N-chan-

v

nel MOSFET (Figure lc) can be dis-
tinguished from a bipolar transistor
by the fact that its gate current is
practically zero. In this case, the
threshold voltage corresponds to the
voltage VA C - V E (for an N- channel
type). To be properly identified by the
tester, the MOSFET must have a
threshold voltage less than 4.5 V, and
it must be an enhancement type
(which is almost always the case).
The other type of MOSFET, which is

G34451 -

Figure i Canhgumiions far measuring the value of i3 for a transistor and the
threshold volte qe cr a MOSFET.

■5 A05 - ■£■*' e .*• 1 g r “'“Srr:* : :s

35

*5V

t5V

©

Figure 2, Configuration for measuring JFET pa romete r s.

called a depletion type, is scarcely
used any more.

Measuring PE?
parameters

Field-effect transistors ( FETs ) can be
characterised by a certain number of
parameters, but here we are only inter-

ested in three of them:

(gate- source threshold voltage),
(drain saturation current), and H DS0W
(resistance in the full 'on' state). Deter-
mining these parameters is more com-
plicated than simply measuring the
current gain of a bipolar transistor.
The topology of the circuit is hardly
suitable for making direct measure-

©

Figure 3. I he Kek in circuit avoids
7AHCAQ52.

errors due fa the internal resistance

ments, so an indirect method based on
a mathematical model of the FET (the
Schichman-Hodges model) is used to
determine the values of the above-
mentioned three parameters by calcu-
lation. Of the three principal parame-
ters of this static model, which is pri-
marily used in Spice simulation, it
turns out that only two are actually
necessary here, since the third param-
eter (/.) has hardly any effect on the
ult im ate c alcul at io n ( s ee ins et ) .

In order to determine the values of
these two parameters, it's necessary
to examine two specific operating
points in order to obtain a set of two
equations. In the first case, the FET is
biased in its linear operating region
(Figure 2a} by using resistor R c . to
force V G3 - to approximately 0.6 V.
Some FETs with low saturation cur-
rents can be biased into their satura-
tion region in this configuration, and in
such cases a variation on the circuit
shown in Figure 2 is used, but this is
not described any further here. The
first configuration yields the first set of
values for V D3 -,. and 1^. Toe sec-
ond operating point is obtained by
configuring the transistor to operate as
a current source (Figure 2b). which
yields a second set of values (V DS2 ,
V*G52 Igz)'

Now things become a bit more compli-
cated, because the second operating
point can lie in the linear region or the
saturation region. The operating region
cannot be determined until the thresh-
old voltage is known. There’s thus
no other choice than to calculate the
value of for each type of operating
region and then choose the proper
value from the two results by checking
the corresponding operating regions.
The resistances R sw of the analogue
switches are shown in the schematic
diagram in Figure 3. They have a value
of approximately 65 12. The exact val-
ues are determined usina an automatic
calibration procedure. The drain resist-
ance, which is approximately 230 12,
consists of a 1C0-Q resistor, the resist-
ance of the analogue switch (65 Q),
and the output resistance of the micro-
processor (65 O).

Another factor that must be borne in
mind is that most FETs are symmetric,
which means that the drain and source
are interchangeable. It is thus impos-
sible to tell these two leads apart, so
the tester can only actually identify the
gate lead. The drain and source leads
are indicated according to the configu-
ration used for calculating the transis-
tor parameters. Interchanging the

36

clrVfci cknwits ■ 4/2035

source and dram leads will not chancre
the information shown on the display
of the SC Analyser 2005, but the
results of the calculation always corre-
spond to indicated lead arrangement.

SchemaiU diagram

The complete schematic diagram of
the circuit is shown in Figure 4. The
circuit draws approximately 6 mA
(except for the backlight, which needs
around 20 mA), and it. is powered by a
9-V battery, A 7SLG5 voir age regulator

combined with three decoupling
capacitors reduces the voltage to
exactly 5 V in order to power the
PIC16F87S. the LCD (with backlight),
and the three 74HC4502 multiplexers.
The display module communicates
with the microcontroller in 4 -bit mode
via five Port C leads and lead RA5 of
Port A, The PIC16F876 is clocked at
approximately 1 MHz by the RIG/C4
network. The PIC16F876 differs from
the 'classic' 16F84 by having an on-
board A/D converter, which is used in
this circuit. The Reset pin can be tied

directly to -5 V T since the microcon-
troller has an automatic reset function.
The three control signals for the tran-
sistor being tested come from RC4,
RC5 and RC6 in Port C. These signals,
which have levels oi 0 V or 5 V, are
routed to the three test terminals via
three analogue multiplexers in order to
insert resistors with specific values
between the microcontroller outputs
and each of the test terminals. The
resistance values are determined by
selection signal pairs RET and RB5 tor
the right-hand signal (Jl), RA2 and

The sialic characteristics of a JFET can be represented by a
set of formulas that express the drain current as o function of
the voltages Vqj and of the FET. There are two different
formulas, since the model distinguishes between the linear
region 0 < Vq S < (Vqc - V T uj) and the saturated region
Vds s (Vgs - Vth), whe re is the threshold voltage of ihe

FET.

The full made! employs ihree parameters:^, and V-^.
Parameter [i is related to the saturation current and the thresh-
old voltage, while parameter K represents ihe channeflen gth
modulation factor and is neglected in our calculations (>. = 0).
The mathematical made! that we use thus appears as follows:

For ihe linear region, defined as 0 < V DS < (V es - V TH ), the
following formula applies:

Id - P-V ds -[2(V os - V TH ] - V DS Ml + 2 V D5 )

For the saturation region, defined as VpS - l^GS “ VynK
following formula applies:

to “ N V G5 - V IH ) 2 ‘P + '- Vq5 )

As we have seen, in the first configuration the FET is in the
linear region with an adequately large ir^g , so the first for-
mula becomes:

toi = P " ^TH ) - ^D51 IP]

[n the second configuration, the FET can be in the linear
mode with:

l D2 - P'V D 52‘[2-[Vq52 - V TH ) - V DS2 J [2]
or if can be in the saturated mode with:

to2 = MVqs2 - Vth ) 2 [3]

In this manner, we obtain a set of two equations in which Vp H
and 3 are the unknowns. Depending on the operating region
or ihe FET, we must use either formula [2] or formula [3).

If we assume that ihe FET is operaling in the linear region,
formulas (1] and [2] yield:

VtHLIN “ C ” ! V G52 “ V 0S2 } 2 /(YdS 2 V’< ) [4)

where

V K = 1 ! D2 ^ tol I'-Vosi
and

C - V(Qs 2 2 + V K -[Vpsi - 2 -Vqsi ) [5]

Consequently, we can calculate the constant B os follows:

B-2 -(Vk-Vgsj) [ 6]

If the operating point of the FET is in the soiurated region, for-
mulas (1) and [3] yield a second-order equation:

V rH 2 * B-V th + C = 0

We now have two solutions for V TH :

V TH i --B + % [B2-4 (C^2)] [7]

and

Vth 2 = VlHSfiJ = -%- "■ [B- - 4 |C - 2)] [8]

Only one of ihese solutions is physically possible and this is
determined by evaluating the two expressions. All that's left tc
do now is to determine V- and V 2 in order to figure out the
actual operating region of ihe FET in ihe second configura-
tion:

V] = V GS2 - V|HUN “ V DS2
V 2 = VqS 2 “ VjHSAT ” V DS2

If V| >0 and V 2 < 0, the FET is operating in the linear
region and V Tri = V THUN *

If V] < 0 and V 2 > 0, ihe FET is aperaTing in the saturated
region and Vth = V THSAT •

If ihe FET is operating in the saturated region, ihe I355 param-
eter corresponds to ihe drain current for V GS = 0. For v DS ,
we fake the value corresponding to the boundary oF the satu-
ration region, which is Vqs = Vqs — - — V-p-j ,

Substituting for Vgg in equation [2] or [3] yields:

toss = PV TH 2

The value of can be easily calculated by rearranging formula
[1] as follows:

P = 'dt ^ { v D5! t2 (V GSt - v rH ) _v DSI ]}

The resistance Rqsgj: corresponds to the slope at the origin
of ihe characteristic curve:

Vds - Nto) Vgs = 0

Finally, Formula [1] yields the following results when Vr^
approaches 0 V:

to ~ Vqs-Vjt-i

r dsgn = dV DS / d iD = -[} - |2-p-V TH )]

4/2CD5 - cl-Vlui eisclr&riia

37

]C1

Figure 4. Complete schemahc diagram of the SC Analyser 200,

RB2 for the centre signal (J2), and RBI
and RB2 for the left-hand signal i J3).
The voltages present on the test ter-
minals are measured by the
P1C15F876 via analogue inputs ANO.
AN1 and AN3.

In order to compensate for the effects
of the internal resistances of the ana-
logue switches when making current
measurements, these measurements
are made using a second switch in
each 74HC4G52 instead of directly at
the leads of the unknown transistor.
The operation of this arrangement is
shown schematically in Figure 3 with
resistor R9 connected in the circuit.
The internal resistance of the micro-
controller output, which is around
30 LI, must also he taken into account.
Finally, three 1-nF capacitors provide a
certain amount or filtering for the
measured signals.

Software

The software is written entirely in
assembly language and nils a large
chunk of the memory space of the
PIC16F575. Approximately half of the

occupied space is used for calculating
parameter values for FETs. If you
would like to program your own micro-
controller. you can download the nec-
essary hex code from the Elektor Elec-
tronics website (v-Avw.elektor-eleciron-
ics.co.uk). The file is found with the pdf
download for this article (April 2005).
For those of you without Internet
access it is also available on floppy
disk from Reader Services, the order
code is 0304051-11. Naturally, you can
also order a fully programmed micro-
controller from Reader Sendees (order
no. 030451-41),

۩nstroeti@n

The PCR layout and component layout
are shown in Figure 5. Ensure that the
1C sockets, electrolytic capacitors. 5-V
regulator and the four ICs are firted the
right way around.

The lb resistors can be replaced by 5 : :
metal-film resistors carefully selected
using an accurate and reliable multi-
meter. The analogue switches must be
74HC types, since the internal resist-
ance of the normal 4000 series is too

large for this application.

The display module can be litre d on
the copper side of the circuit board. To
make it easy to connect the display,
there is a single-row 16-way pinheader
(male) on the circuit board, which
mates with a corresponding 16 -way
female connector on the display circuit
board. Here we chose to use a modern
type of display called 'PLED' (see the
'OLED and PLED' inset), but you can
also use any desired LCD module
based on (or compatible with) the
Hitachi HD44780, although the pin
arrangement may differ from the
arrangement for the display used here.
Note that the pin arrangement of the
display used here is rather unusual,
with pins 15 and 16 for the backlight
being located next to pin 1.

Beside the test leads with alligator
clips, there is also a special test circuit
board that is connected to the main cir-
cuit board and can be used to simplify
testing SLID devices (diodes and tran-
sistors). Use three short, flexible leads
to connect the SLID holder to the main
circuit board, and ensure that me
proper lead sequence is maintained (as

38

elsifcr ckttFCr.'u - 4-2405

Figure 5. Tract and component layouts far the associated printed circuit board ,
SMD components con be conveniently tested usina the small circuit beard,

■* -f !.■

seen from above: contact 1 to Jl t con-
tact 2 (middle) to J2, and contact 3 to
J3). Although this hardly matters for
the measurements, it is important for

identifying the leads. The middle con-
tact must always he connected to J2.
Naturally, you can also use flexible
leads with miniclips. Toe circuit board

is designed to fit in a standard enclo-
sure with a 9-V batten' compartment.

Calibration

After the tester is switched on, a wel-
come message appears and displays
the software version (SC-Analyser 2CQ5
Elektor Rev ; 2.0s). If you don’t see this
message, try adjusting contrast control
PI to Improve the situation.

The first thing you should do is to cali-
brate the internal resistances of the
analogue switches. If these values are
known as exactly as possible, the
measurements of the various transistor
parameters will be more accurate. If
this calibration is not performed, a
default value of 65 il is used for each
switch. Each time the tester is
switched on. the software checks to
see whether the calibration has taken
place, and if it hasn't, the message Cal
error is displayed for approximately
one second.

The c alibi ad on procedure is easy and
runs automatically. To perform the pro-
cedure, fit a jumper in position JPI
while the tester Is switched off and
short all three test leads together, and
then switch the tester on. The mes-
sage L Cal Remove jumper' will be dis-
played on the tester. Now you should
remove the jumper, and the calibration
procedure will start. Tnree resistances
are measured one after the other, and
their values are displayed successively.
Next, the message ‘Short XX
will appear. After this you can discon-
nect the three test leads from each

cow ITS

LIST

Resistors:

R1.R5.R9 = 100 kQ \%

R2 R6.R10 R1 3 - 5kQ6
R3.R7.RU = Ikn. }%

R4.R8.R1 2 - 100n, 1%

R14 = 47kli
R1 5 = 33Q
R1 6 = 270
PI = iOkO preser

Capacitors:

C 1 .C3 = lOuF 25V radial
C2,C5.C9 = 1 00 nF
C4 = 1 00’ pF
C6.C7 C3 - 1 nF MKT
CI0 = lOuF 16V radial

Semiconductors:

D1 = IN4001
1C 1 =78105

1C2 = PIC16F876-20/SP (programmed.

dtce" cade 040409-41)

IC3JC4 IC5 - 74HC4052 (HC only!]

Miscellaneous:

Si - on/off slide switch
LCD1 = standard LCD wllh 2x16
characters, e-.a.. A5I-G-1 62FS-GF-
EW5/W (with backlight) cr LCD 162C
BL (F-LED wish active backlight)

16-way SIL pirthead&r with mating
connector, or Rateable for connection
to display

IF 1 = 2-way pinhecdsr with jumper
3 mini croc els as T
3 DILI 6 1C sockets
1 DIL23 IC seeker

Enclosure e.a.. Hammond 1591BTSU
9-V tottery with dip-on eods
5 wire links

PCB order cade 03045 I -1 [see
Readers services cr ww.v.elekrar-
efectronlcs.coiik)

Disk PIC hex cade order code
030451 ‘11 or tree download from
wv,--w . e ! ek to r-s I ectr q n ics . co . uk

see text

pC

configuration

I he microcontroller must be config-
ured wiih the Following options:

oscillator in RC mode

- watchdog timer (WDT)
disabled

- 'timer reset on power on'
enabled

- brownout reset disabled

- IEPROM protection disabled

- writing to Flash memory dis-
abled

- debug mode disabled

- code protection disabled

4- 2005 - eld, tv eb:ircrfi

39

other, and the tester vrill automatically
change to the test mode and display
the message 'No component *-*-*'.
Calibration can be performed v.Tien-
ever desired by repeating the above
procedure (switch oh the power, ht the
jumper, and switch the power on
again).

If you experience any problems, check
that the five wire bridges are in fact
properly fitted and soldered in place.
Also check 10 make sure that the supply
voltage is present at the fC sockets.

Operation

After the welcome message showing the
software version ( SC -Analyser 2005 Elec-
tor Rev 1.0s), the display should show
the following information (Photo 1).

The first line shows the transistor type
and the value of one of the characteris-
tic parameters. The second line shows
the lead arrangement of the transistor
and. if relevant, the value of a second
parameter.

Bipolar transistor

The fust line of the display shows the
polarity of the transistor (PNP or NPN),
the type of semiconductor material (sil-
icon or germanium), and the parame-
ter H-r. The second ime shows the
lead arrangement of the transistor and
the collector current. The current has a
value of approximately 1.5 to 4 mA,
depending on the current gain. The
SC Analyser 2005 displays the type of
semiconductor material ( Ge 1 for ger-
manium or SI' for silicon) according to
the measured value of V BE (Photo 2).

If the transistor is partially or com-
pletely shorted, the associated leads
are marked with an \X' by the
SC Analyser 2005. A short is consid-
ered to be present if the resistance
measured between two leads is less
than 50 Q. (Photo 3).

FETs

The values of the parameters VV^, lyss
and R 33 QN are shown approximately
every two seconds. The drain and
source leads are determined arbitrarily
by the SC Analyser 2005, but they do
correspond to the configuration actu-
ally used to determine the parameters.
If you swap the drain and source leads
of the transistor under test (TUT), you
can obtain the values for the reverse
configuration, but since field effect
transistors have symmetric structures,

OLID ond P LE

Organic LED (OLED) and polymeric LED (PLED) are recent
developments in LED technology. The OLED effect was dis-
covered in the early 1 980s by Eastman Kodak, but it has
only recently been put to practical use in commercial appli-
cations such os PDAs ond MP3 players. The Kodak LS633
digital camera was one of he first devices to be fitted with
an OLED screen. Some of the MP3 players from Packard Bell
also have an especially nice OLED display

OLEDs are based on LCD technology. A sandwich farmed of
several Sayers of organic film is located between two
chorged electrodes: a metal cathode and a transparent
anode. There are four organic films in total: a hole injection
layer, a hale transport layer on emission layer and an elec-
tron transport layer. As scon os a voltage is applied, the pos-
itive and negative charges combine in ihe emission layer to
generate electroluminescent light. In contrast to LCDs, v/hich
need an external source of light (backlight], OLEDs actively
emit light.

An even more recent development is ihe PLED, in which an
undoped polymer is sandwiched between two electrodes.

The polymer lights up when a voltage is applied. This device
can produce a full range of colours and is relatively inexpen-
sive compared with other technologies, such as LCD ond

OLED.

The advantages of PLEDs are that they require only a small
amount of power for high brightness, they are relatively light,
robust and rosT and they operate over o relatively large tem-
perature range.

Comment from our design staff:

As you hove probably realised, we are quite enthusiastic
about ihe visual properties of the PLED display used in this
project. However, we are highly disappointed with the inad-
equate design of this display, it generates huge current
spikes with amplitudes up to several hundred miiliamperes,
which create a lot of noise on the 5-V supply line. In our
opinion, this is caused by a poor hardware design for the
display [Version A), -with inadequate attention being given to
the switching times required by the display drivers. Due to
this problem, we were forced to include an extra RC network

OLED DESPLAY

G ■=- = E

Y-

H

U It H

1

G Less

-

i X " ■ r -

CeV-i.;-:-

GK - =

[to =-:■-=

^T2 -= r ; —

— C — : - : i - :i - 1 i . £ ■

LiiAi i - ;□

Cross -section of on OLED display.
The structure or a PLED fs s/nti/on

in the +5-V supply.

We do not (yet) know whether PLED displays from other
manufacturers suffer from the same shortcoming. If you can
get your hands on a different brand of PLED display, it
would be interesting to just measure what sort of curreni
pulses it draws.

40

slskiar f^iticnTcs - T 2005

1

there shouldn't be any large differ-
ences in the measured values.
Considering the method used to make
the measurements, the accuracy of the
values provided by the SC Analyser
2005 is more than adequate. For I DES it
is =5 h, and for R dso ^ it is ±5 Q. How-
ever, the measured value of the thresh -
old voltage can differ from, the true
value by 0.5 V for certain transistors,
although in general an accuracy of
50 mV is achieved. A particular type of
FET from one manufacturer may yield
a value that is very close to the true
value, while the same type from a dif-
ferent manufacturer yields a value that
diners by several hundred millivolts, hi
practice, the accuracy is related to the
accuracy of the Schichman-Hodges
model and reveals the limitations of
this model (refer to the inset on this
subject).

Threshold voltage

The threshold voltage is negative for
N-channel FETs and positive for P-
c harm. el FETs, The maximum value is
limited to -20 V by the soft 7 . '/are. Tne
resolution is 10 mV for values up to
—9.99 V and 100 mV for larger values
(Photo 4).

shows the voltage and the current
through the diode via a resistance of
approximately 400 D, The maximum
current is thus limited to around 12 mA

(Photo 8J.

The second screen shows the same
information, but this time with a resist-
ance of approximately 5.9 kO, which
causes the maximum current to be lim-
ited to approximately 803 uA (Photo 9 j,

The third screen shows the current in
the reverse direction and the test volt-
age. The resolution is 100 nA

(Photo 1DJ.

SMDs

You’ve probably been wondering how
to use the SMD portion of the tester.
Toe leads of the component to be
tested must make contact with the cor-
responding copper areas on the circuit
board. SMD diodes must be connected
between area 1 and area 3. A small
plastic rod can be used to properly
press an SMD device against the cir-
cuit board so that its leads make good
contact.

Conclusion!

p{: 1 i It it:

ilpl if IH:

a

J.

ill

f- ( i — * — - m 9 \

■ fa

4- "

Ell m a * TPi 1

- ‘X* ~~ \p
’i* 'T*

I 1 v

Saturation current

Tne saturation current (with the gate
shorted to the source) is shown here.
The value of the saturation current
ranges from 0 to 99.9 mA. Tne is solu-
tion is 10 uA for currents up to 10 mA

and 100 liA for currents uu to 100 mA
* —

Photo 5J.

Drain-source resistance

Tins is the drain-source resistance
when the FET is fully 'on F with
v GS = 0 V. The measurement has a
range of 0-999 Q (Photo 6).

MOSFETs

The displayed voltage corresponds to
the threshold voltage of the MO S FET
for a drain current of approximately
2 mA. The measurement range is
0-4.5 V, with a resolution of 10 mV. For
proper 1 dentine ation of the device as a
MOSFET, the gate leakage current
must not exceed 0.5 uA iPhoto 7).

Diodes

Diodes can be connected between the
left-hand and right-hand terminals of
the tester. Tne SC Analyser 2005 indi-
cates the positions of the anode and
cathode. Tmee screens are displayed
in sequence at an interval of approxi-
mately 2 seconds. Tne first screen

Tne SC Analyser 2005 is a handy eas-
ily constructed instrument with a

#

large number of features, which can
be a quite valuable aid to electronics
hobbyists and professionals. A brief
list of its possible applications
includes searching for an equivalent
type, testing device operation, sorting
devices, measuring unmarked transis-
tors, and simply determining the lead
ar rang e m e n t without t humb mg
through a data book. Time to warm up
your solderina iron!

(0304514)

Internet links

Authors web rife:

'■■Av 1 ,-.' . m w i nst r-j rrisnfs.com

FAQ site:

■vwwr m w i n si r u m e n t s . c q m ,/5 C A 2 C 0 5 /

sca2QQ5.bim!

Author's e-moil address:
m. ■■■ gfecgek. Tm.vYisSrumems.corri

Microchip:

v/ww. microchip -com ■' o ov/r. load / i i i /

ding/picrnicro /families 1 6~57x/

3Q292c.odt

About rfie

author

The author was born in 1965 and

j*-

studied at me Ecole Notionale
Supeneure d'Eieelroniqijs si de
Radioelectrscile de G rentable
(EN5ERG) in. France. He worked as
an engineer Far seven years in the
research department of a large
French manufacturer of weighing
equipment. Fallowing in Ts he
changed to ihe French branch of
Ha meg r where he holds the position
at Director of Development Between
his travels to she other side or the
globe, he manages to find a bit of
time to design measurement instru-
ments for eledronic hobbyists.

4 2i 305 ■ drVtti =!*rtrc"Tts

41

review copy

Wo r kin with 32-bit micros

Kell A1M7 Development Kit

Paul Goossens

Most microcontroller-based projects in
Elektor Electronics employ 8-bit devices,
simply because 8-bit micros usually have
sufficient capacity to handle the job.

Usually..., not always! In a few cases,
we need to look out for more powerful
alternatives. This review covers a devel-
opment kit based on a 16/32-bit micro.

Lots of electronics equip-
menu relies on an 8 -bit
microcontroller for its intelli-
gence. Despite predictions
to the contrary, 16-bit micro-
controllers never knocked
out their 8 -bit counterparts.
Today's generation of 32-bit
controllers, on the other
hand, is increasingly seen in
the latest electronic appara-
tus. These power fill numb e r
crunchers come into their
own in complex equipment
like DVD players, cam-
corders and so on.

In most cases, this type of
equipment needs to employ
some kind of operating sys-
tem, which adds to the
processor load. Although
rhere are operating systems
for 8-bit micros, they tend to
be rather limited in terms of
memory control and memory
space.

Today's 32 -bit microcon-
trollers usually do have
resources available required
by modern operating sys-
tems. The reason is, or
course, round in the general
trend of consumer electronics

growing towards the PC as
well as being able to perform
several different functions.

A good start

People with a practical inter-
est in electronics (which
includes all readers of this
magazine) have come to
value easy ways of entering
new technology. In the case
of microcontrollers, one of
the best ways to get started
is to obtain a development
kit. especially if you get your
hands on one comprising
both hardware and support-
ing software.

Kail have an excellent repu-
tation for comprehensive
development systems for a
wide variety of microcon-
troller families.

Kails MCB2IQ0 kit dis-
cussed in ibis article is
based around the LPC2128
microcontroller from Philips.
In addition to the board
proper Keil also supply a
JTAG interface with a USB
connection. The software
that comes with the kit is

also complete in every way:
compiler, linker, simulator
and debugger utilities are
supplied in 'evaluation' ver-
sions, The limitations are
nor too serious: the debug-
ger is limited to 16 kBytes of
code and the software gen-
erated by the compiler may
not be used commercially.

Installation

The best thing to ao is first
install the software in the kit

- 1 6/32 bit core
-256 <B on-chip

Flash memory

- 16 kB on-chip RAM memory

- In-System Programmable (SSPi

- Built-In debugger options

- 2 CAN interfaces

- 2 ssrici ports

- 12C interlace

- 2 SPi interfaces

- 2 32-bii timers

- 6 PWM outputs

- 4 1 G-bir A/D converters

and then connect up the
JTAG interface. This enables
Windows XP to automatical-
ly recognise the interface
and perform a smooth instal-
lation. Next, we installed
DK-ARM and the GNU com-
piler. After a restart of the
PC. the software was ready
for use.

First example

Encouraged by the smooth
installation we cheerfully

- 46 I/O pins

- F1L controlled clock

On- board Interfaces

- 2 serial in'erfaces

- 2 CAN infer races

- 2 pushbuttons

- 8 LEDs

- .,TAG interface

- Analogue potentiometer

- /artcus slanab available rcr

u

user applications

LPC2 z: \29 main features

42

Anhr elcdr ar-its - 4 ALU

stalled to compile the first
example and then went on
to test it straight away on
the board. Unfortunately
there were a few hiccups,
the software reporting that
a certain program could not
be found. Eventually, it
turned out that the software
was making use of the Kell
compiler which, apparently,
was incomplete. By con-
trast. the example supplied
for the GNU compiler
seemed to work like a
dream. Although the com-
pile operation finished okay,
the program could not be
downloaded to the board. To
allow this to be done, you
first need to configure the
Flash utility, which goes by
way of the menus
Flash 'Con figure Flash
Tools/ 'Settings. In the new
window that pops up
( Figure 2) you need to add
the right algorithm.

Having done this, we were
able to download the pro-
gram. but nothing hap-
pened. Apparently the
processor was still in the
reset state. Although it can
be started via the debugger,
we found that a cumber-
some solution. Having
c licke d aio und s ome mo re
menus, we found that the
option ‘Reset and run ' was
disabled In the above win-
dow. Tills appears to be the
default setting. Having
ticked the option, the pro-
gram was found to start
instantly after downloading.
All of our further experi-
ments were entirely success-
ful, although the Flash tools
had to be configured again
with each new project.

The judges' verdict

The development kit con-
tains everything to get start-
ed with 32-bit processors.

Not a quick start in our case,
but after the first few hur-
dles nothing should keep
you from writing your own
applications.

The problems with the Kell
compiler that came with the
kit remain unsolved and we
were unable to compile
examples using this tool.
Fortunately tills is not a seri-
ous problem because the
GNU compiler works like a
dream and Kell's develop-
ment platform including the
debugger also work just
fine. The GNU compiler is
fully embraced by the plat-
form, so it is not necessary
to exit the development
shell just to compile a pro-
gram.

The hardware is pretty
Spartan, In view of the raw
processing power of the
LPC2129 we had expected
to see some more I 'O. Some
processor pins have been
brought out to pins for con-
nection of your own exten-
sion circuits. Unfortunately,
the PCB does not contain
the necessary connectors —
If you need any you have to
solder them yourself.

Overall, the kit is satisfacto-
ry if you are after a develop-
me n t p la tfo mi for 3 2 -bit
processors. Toe JTAG inter-
face in particular is very
useful, although we found
its practical realisation a bit
frugal considering the price
of £249 for the kit.

Kif kindly supplied by
Hifex (www.hitex.co.uk)

r ig j re The d a 1 - e hpm gn t p la tbrm .

Figure 2. Do remember fa properly configure the Flash too! I

2 5 * i ni L — jini ■

W y ij es - A * l %r~“ H

y ^ il MW ^ &

?r 51 11- 13 =? ^ ia & — A

- hq^:x “±-

a i

£ ‘car *

Til".

- • r • *

■•LUti » J

Ll

S X

* . a

:

*

K

id??

i

*~i4

5 rr - V j T2

l ;

JI~ j f . . ,-jr

j -jViVljV

31

i i *53

I

: L‘

,

i

“ * ; "IT t: . Lilli

Z . B ..

L j " p v 1 JJJ’*

Figure 3. Example showing the debugger in action.

4 2flQ5 Tnt:j ikdrcva

43

—

of the sound card

Herman Bu lie

Almost all modern computers have a sound card, either on the
motherboard or on an expansion card. This card is used to
convert digital data into analogue sound signals. You may
wonder if such a card could be used as a function generator.
This is certainly possible, although the limitations of sound
cards have to be kept in mind. There are various programs
available that do this, but that isn't as much fun and
educational as writing your own Delphi program that
generates user-defined signals.

44

ekkliwr- 4/2005

In this article well build a software function generator the
can output a sinewave, sawtooth or squarewave via the
sound card. As a bonus well add the facility for the
generator to read a file from the hard disc and output it
as a waveform.

The bandwidth of a typical soundcard is about 20 kHz.
When you use such a card to generate waveforms, you
con create sine waves with frequencies up to 20 kHz. Far
other waveforms you need at least the third harmonic,
which limits the maximum frequency to about 7 kHz. You
therefore shouldn't expect to use this method to make a
function generator with a ] MHz output.

As with most projects that have some complexity, this pro-
ject can be divided into c number oF logically connected
blacks (flowchart).

In the first block one complete cycle of the waveform is
created. This daia then has to be converted into a suita-
ble format tor the soundcard. And finally we have to pro-
gram the soundcard to repeatedly output this signal until
the stop button is pressed.

Creating the waveform

For the simpler waveforms we have declared a single
T Da fa Array array, which can be accessed throughout
the program (global). The number of samples stored in the
array is defined by the global constant NumOfSampIes.
For a sine wave we store one period of the signal in the
array. In the function for the sinewave we've declared the
array SineAr, which is of tyce TDaiaArray, This Is then
filled with the values for a single period of the sinewave.
Since the data sent to the sound card are 2-byte integers,
the values have to be rounded first.

To help with calculating the sinewave we've made use of
a special function that exists in Delphi. The sincos(phi,
sin, cos) function is much foster than the normal calcula-
tion for sines and cosines because it was written comple-
tely in assembler by Borland and v/e gladly take advan-
tage of it.

FOR index : = 0 TO SiuEOfSasples DO

BEGIN

Sincos{Z T pi T index . No^.Qf Samples , ain, cos I ;
Si ne.-.r [ index j : - round \ amplitude * ainj;

END;

We use a similar method to create the sawtooth and
squarewave signals:

FOR Indsx := 0 TO NupOf S^irples - 1 DO
Si’.McothAnj Index j: = round (2 Index T
Amplitude 'iiUT-Of Samples * — amplitude

FOR Index := 0 TO NuffiOf Samples DIY 2-1 DO

BEGIN

SquarsArr Index ] := £QpI±turie;

SquareAr [ NunOfSanples - 1 - Index] -s.ir.pl i tree ;

END ;

We have la take a slightly different approach when we
want to use an externally created waveform.

It is fairly simple to create a waveform using Excel. The
Excel example Signais.xls {port of the project software for
this article, found on the tlektor Electronics website under
040240-4-1 1 ) shows how to moke □ waveform con-
sisting of 100 cycles at maximum amplitude, followed by
a 1 00 cycles of 1 0% amplitude. This type of signal is
commonly used to test the transient response of ampli-
fiers. The waveform itself is exported as a CSV (Comma-
Separated Variables) File.

This file is read info a variable of type TStringlisfr. This
is a block of memory that doesn't have its size defined at
the start. This type ot variable is called a dynamic varia-
ble. Well see mare of these variables at a later stage.
Since the declaration only defines the type of the variable
we must also establish the start address, which will be
used to access the variable. This is done with the Create
method. In this case v/e ve declared the variable Data I n
to be of type TStringllst;

Var Data In : TStringllst ;

In the body of the procedure the following line is added:

Dataln := 13 trlngliat . Create ;

This variable has now been initialised for use. Th e name
already suggests that this type is meant to store strings.
Since the data from Excel are stared in a .CSV file (rea-
dable text), we can put these details into a variable for
further processing.. Those clever boys at Borland have
created a method (procedure) to easily read this type of
file from the hard disc:

DE-zInZoEdFrqzJilE:. 'jig^Is.CsV 1 \

To make the program mare flexible we've added a file dia-
logue from Windows (File, Open), which is used to choose
the file. This component can be found an the Dialogs tab
and is called OpenDiafog. It is used here as follows:

IF Open-Dialog! .Execute TBEM

Dar adEranf lie ( GpenDialcgl . F ilaNaaze j

ELSE

BEGIN

gSuSriic an error — aaaaga
![aa=agsDi^i “File la net correct ! , tcError,
l-DOK], G \ T

exit the procedure
exit;

END ;

At this stage we have created or loaded the signal data.
We now have to convert this data into a format that is
compatible with the sound card.

Preparing data for the sound card

Next, we are going to fool the sound card into thinking
that it's playing a sound fragment.

One file-type that is suitable for playback on a sound
card has the file extension ‘WAV'. A WAV file consists of
a header of 44 bytes, which contains information about
the file, followed by the actual data. This data is made
up of the values of the signal, sampled at regular inter-
vals. If you take enough samples at small intervals you
can reproduce the signal fairly well The sampling pro
cess is based on an extensive theory, which we won't
cover here, A simple example of sampling is shown in
Figure 1,

A WAV file is part of a broader range of file types, which
also includes video files (such as AVI). We only concern
ourselves with the simplest type here. This means that the
header can be kept much, simpler than the documentation
suggests. A result of this is that some items appear twice
in the header.

All information within the header is combined in a
record. This is a block of data that contains a number of
items of data (fields), which may be different types., such
as strings, arrays, integers etc. When a record is sped-

■i/2005 -elehuu

45

tied we fix She offsets from the start of the record for all
variables, as wed os their size. If we moke a mistake the
compiler will warn of a type conflict, which avoids errors
creeping into the program.

Fo improve the access times in complex data structures
[such as records) the fields are often rounded upwards to
the nearest 2, 4 r or 8 bytes. The ChunkID variable, for
example, is 3 byres long and would be rounded up to 4
bytes. AN following variables are then moved up by one
byte, with the result that the sound card won't be able to
m a k e sense or the record. We can avoid this by decla-
ring the record os a PACKED type.

The names of the fields have been kept as close as possi-
ble to those used in the specification for WAV files.

Type

recr.-£- = PACKED RECORD

C hu r. CO : ARRAY l G . . 3 ] OF Char;

C h u n kSlze : La ~ g- o r d ;

Format: ARRAY [ C . . 3 J OF Char
SubChunk I ZD : ARRAY [ 0 . . 3 J OF char ;

SuhChc nk 1 5 i ze : loncvord ;

.-.rd i ororr ai. : word ;
tkzrOf Channel s : word;

1 sP, s : loisrwcrd ;

ByxeRate: longword;

RyxespcrSarpIe: ward;

HdtsFcrSaTzp". s ; -.rcrd ;

S rh Ch r >2 1 D : ARRAY [ C- - . 3 ] OF Char ;

S ch C h u R >2 S i ze : 2 an grwo r d ;

EifD ;

A lot of in form a I ion within the header never changes. The
procedure PrepareHeader is calfed to set these values
in the headers. The values shown below are then assig-
ned to the fields in the header:

HITH header DO
BEGIN

ChunkID : - J RIFF ' ;

Forwat i = 'ffAVS
5 zb Ch \2 u k 1 ID t= ‘ rat J ;

Sub Cb unkSSize : - S 1 1 ;

Au d iOr d r^E r : = S Q 1 ;

=ubChurik2 IS : = J dab a ' ;

JintOf Channels 1;

By tssper Sample := 2;

EitsPer Sample : = 16;

END;

As we're limiting ourselves to a mono signal for the time
being the value of NumOfChannels is 1 (siereo^2).

The sample size is also fixed at 16 bits (smallmteger).

The SampleRate is the frequency at which the samples
□re output. For 'normal' signals a single cycle is output.
The sample rote is therefore equal to the frequency of the
signal multiplied by the number or samples in one cycle.
The ByteRate is the number of bytes thoi is read per
second and is therefore equal to SampleRaie x NumOf-
Channels x size of one (mono) sample. In our case this is
2 x SampleRate.

The remaining fields hold information about the size of
the data block:

Chunksize := data size (in bytes) -5-36
5ubChunk2Size := size of the data block

We're now at the stage where we have all the informa-
tion required to create the WAV file. We just hove to
combine the header and data and send them to the
sound card.

Delphi afters a very tsexible way to reserve an area of
memory and fill it with data. This uses parts from the
TStream family'. This tamily has several members of
which well use the memarystream one (TMemoryS-
fream), TMemorystream has Inherited all properties
from Tstream and has added a few of its own.

Since streams are dynamic variables., only its type will be
defined when the program starts and the actual variable
still has to be created. As we can only send one WAV file
to the sound card we only need □ single variable of this
type. The variable is created at the start of the program
in the OnCreote method;

just as with ihe TStringlist the size of the variable Is not
defined here. It Is this property that makes a stream very
flexible.

Before the header is copied to the Wavesiream it is first
cleared;

WITH vr* vest re an DO
BEGIN
Clear;

vrrireRaf f er { rlsvehesdsr,
WriteSuffer =r , sL-aaz •=

END;

sizsof [ Wave header ) » ;

-n;

Next, the WriteBuffer method is used ro copy the header;

-i. * I ZBZ

^ j-

The first parameter is the variable thai is written to the
stream and the second parameter tells how many bytes
have to be written. The data has also been prepared and
is waiting in an array. This is written to the stream in the
same way. The stream itself keeps track with a pointer
where the end of the stream Is and It starts writing from
that position. In this way the data follows on neatly after
the header.

Writ s3uf far < ar, sizeof ( ar j

We can read or change ihe value or she above-mentio-
ned pointer using the Position property.

AN the Information is now ready ro be sent to the sound
card.

Because the creation of the WAV file made use of three
predefined functions, we have combined PrepareHeader

46

defer -4/2005

s -,T

and Wr] fa Buffer in one procedure:

_ = _ = i

"0 b “ ac - ; V AR ar :

)

li wouldn r be very useful if we only displayed the sample
frequency We'd rather set and show the signal fre-
quency. Because we already know how many data
samples there are, the relationship between the signal fre-
quency and She sample rate is straightforward:

Wav&Hesder. SanpIeRare = Sreq t ;iun-£)rSsr.pIes:

With the help of a Snackbar we can set the signal Fre-
quency and use that to calculate the SampleRate and
show it on the display.

After a wave function is started the position of the Freq-
TrackBar is read and the SampleRate is set with the cal-
culated value.

Once this is done we can use the PreqTrackBar to adjust
the signal frequency. The position of the Trackbar is read
and the SampleRate b calculated. We then turn the
sound off for a moment (more on this later). The pointer
in the stream is set to 0 at the start of the header and
Write Buffer is then used to copy the modified header
over the old one. The sound is then turned an again.

After every change in frequency the display is of course
updated.

These actions have to be performed every time that the
slider of the FreqTrackBar is moved. It therefore makes
sense to start these actions via the OnChange event.
Select the trackbar ana double-click on the OnChange
event under the tab for Events in the Object Inspector.

We then add the tallowing commands to the OnChange
procedure:

P ROCS! DU PC TFc m 1 . Fzre qTr ^ c k S a zrC h s T; go, 5 C r. d 5 T : TQbjscb) ;

BEGIN

KITH FraqFrack.E=r DO

BEGIN

Wave header „3a“pIaRalic: := FraqFrazjcIiar . Fc=ii icr. t
li unOI £ ar.p lea;

t a r jtl a o^Rd off
Pi ay Sound! NIL, I , C- j ;

Welvs S tream. Position : = Q ;

Waves t rear. . WriteBuf f ar [ Waveheader , zlzezf ( wavaha-

■ 'Fth %Bd‘ rzriarE are displayed vith
a. f ield-'.fidfch cf S charterers

Fraqlabal , Caprigr. : = For7^Et( f \5d r , ( FreqTrack-

Bar.Pasitipn] | - ' r.z 1 ;

a-rrr.d Dr. rgrir.

FlayScmnd : VFrrearr . !!ar.rry r 1, FF I MFMGEV OR

£:;r_i::s or if: __\f ync ;

END ;

END;

The imported waveform still has to be converted into a
WAV file. This was already read into the Data In Strin-
gLbt, which is a stream optimised for strings. The Strin-
glbt has a Count property, which returns the number of
strings read. This thererore tells us the number of samples.
Because the waveform was created externally weVe
assumed that the sample rate is 50 kHz is. The sample
rate has to fit in 2 bytes and therefore has a maximum
value or 64 kHz. 50 kHz is dose to the maximum and is
easier to use in calculations. We have already made sure
that the maximum amolitude is within limits when we ere-

I

ated the data file in Excel, so that is also take care of.

We con use ibis information to construct the wave hea

Haute 3-ihh is what me sowlco'n fcoks *:s a. so 2 kHz}.

t‘: :■

figure Arc! rir.a: > a squares a^e output (2 kHz as ■-*-

der. We then read the Siring List sample by sample, con*
vert it to a sma//in/eger and add it to the WaveStream:

FOR index := 0 10 Cazipl aCnznv - 1 DO

BEGIN

a azr.pls : - S trloint Oat sin . £ a rir.qa [ index ] > ;

W ave £ - rear' . Wr ItaFvf far \ = ar.pl a , £ r r aa f = airpl a ;

END;

Once this is completed, the sound cord can be loaded
with the WaveStream and the playback can start.

Driving the sound card

The unit M/VISysrem has several procedures that we need
to control the sound card. The most important procedure
is the one to play back a file:

Play Sound ( <paraml> , <param2 > , <pajrsm3 > )

In the simplest case pararnl is the name of a WAV file,
for example: c:\winnt\media\chimes.wav.

It is also possible to pass a memory address (pointer) to
a WAV Hie stored in memory and that is what we use
here, A Memory St re am has a memory property,
which is of type pointer. This was the main reason for

' M5 ■ sYui.r

47

; it-irn li tnnfotn

-I

mrnimm ■

j

1

i 4

l f» . * , ■ i

3TTf > * + * in. .11* *1 li HI
- - .

* I;

* M

— ’ -• ~ r I »-*

i ilitiflil tHtff iri Mini

[ T ;

Figure 5. Part of the wa^'eform created in Excel. The complete cycle
consists - ' a '-Hz signal, 500 m> x 'C . i omptoude to/ o^vsd 3 ;r
500 ms c* ; 0'- amplitude. The sampling frequency is 50 kHz.

Fiou re 6.

The construction cr a 6lm;ap for o SpsedButicn.

choosing this type of stream. The first parameter then
looks as follows:

? lay S otjh d ( I t a ve£ t r eari . r.e “ o r y , <p =r £zr.2 > r <p=rzi:3> \

Param2 is 0, unless sound is played bock from o
resource, but we won't go into this here.

By choosing a suitable value for pa ram 3 we tell the
sound card that paraml isn't □ file, bur a pointer to a
memory address. Param3 is made up of a combination
of 3 constants that are defined in the unit MMSystem.
5ND_MEMORY indicates that param l is a memory
address, SND_LOOP makes the file play indefinitely and
5ND_ASYNC tells that the playback has to happen auto*
nomously. The last value is required in combination with
SND_LOOP. Whenever we want to send the data stream
to the sound card we use the procedure:

? I ay £ ou nd r V? av & £ ^ re ar. . Me” o ry ( 3 , 3 IX D_J*ZMORY O R
SirTLCO? OR £!m_ASYKC ) ;

To turn ihe sound oFf we also use PlaySound, but with dif-
ferent parameters:

?lay3 o‘_:r. d ; ’ill ,£■,-*

Since the first parameter is a pointer, we can't just put a
zero in it. Instead, we have to use a special type of
empty pointer, called NIL.

The only thing left to do is to sei the amplitude of the sig-
nal, which we do via a Windows function from the Wave
Amplitude Control. This requires a 4-byte variable, which
holds the signal level. Ihe iwo most significant byres
determine the signal level of the left channel and the
other two bytes are for the right channel.

Two functions have been defined to adjust bath channels
independently. We first use waveoutgefvolume to
read the current volume level. We then replace the hig-
hest or lowest two bytes and write back the variable
using waveoufsetvolume*

The volume setiing usually follows a logarithmic rule. This
hasn't been taken into account when we show the ampli-

tude as a percentage of the maximum signal level.

Layout

We have taken particular care with the layout. For the
first time we've used burtons that contain images. We
have chosen to use so-called speedbutfons because they
ha ve several useful properties. Depending on the state of
a button it can show a different image. If is also passible
to un select all other buttons when o s inale button is die-
ked. If you want to unselect a group of buttons they have
to know aboui each other's existence. They know this via
the property group index. When a burton is clicked all
other buttons with the same groupindex are unselecfed
jgroupindex >0J. This is an ideal solution when we wont
to select a single button, for example v^hen we choose a
waveform.

Images can be added via the Glyph property. A glyph (a
'raised'' character or symbol) is a bitmap that contains a
maximum of four images, which are all of ihe same size
and are next to each other in □ horizontal row. The
SpeedButtan shows one oF these images, depending on
ihe state of the burton (see Figure 5),

Image 1 Button is unselected
Image 2 Burton disabled

Image 3 Button is clicked. If groupindex=0 image 1
appears again afterwards.

Image 4 Button stays down.

We also have to tell the speedbutton that there are 4 ima-
ges in the glyph via the property NumGlyphs=4.

Conclusien and result!

Even though the externally generated WAV file has a limi-
ted frequency range (max. sample frequency of 64 kHz),
this is a very useful function generator. Because we can
use externally generated waveform files, the number of
possible waveforms is infinite, which makes this fairly uni-
que amongst signal generators.

We could expand the generator by making use of both
stereo) channels. The left and right channels could then
oe programmed separately. As an example, when wor-
king with complex signals one channel could be pro-
grammed with the signal ond the other channel could be
used for a trigger signal with a programmable delay.
When v/e used a spectrum analyser (Agilent 4395A) to
analyse a sine wave output, we obtained surprisingly
good results:

S/N ration: > 95 dB

2 r *“ harmonic; < - 65 dB

3 r ° harmonic: < -80 dB

Measured with a 1 kHz signal at 0 dBm.

These values were measured an an arbitrary computer
that had its sound card on the motherboard. Other cords
may give very different results.

A number of sound cards were found to produce signifi-
cant distortion at maximum output levels. St is important ra
keep an eye out far this if distortion is of concern. If
necessary the maximum amplitude should be set to o
lower value.

The waveforms shown in this article hove been captured
by a digital oscilloscope (leCroy WaveRunner LT344L).

All program files for this article can be found at
www.elexfor-electron ics.co.uk (April 2005, file no,

040240-4-1 I).

48

eEektuur- 4/2005

eiews & new products

Flash PSCs

with USB 2.0 Connectivity

Microchip recently announced the
first Flash PIC--- microcontrollers
with Full-Speed USB 2,0 connec-
tivity and 48 MHz operation, for
12 megabiis-per-second (Mbps)
data-transfer rates. Combined
with o '.vide variety' of peripherals
and nano Watt Technology power
management rhese features pro-
vide a complete solution for
designer; working with USB in
industrial medical and many
other embedded applications.
Most USB-capable microcon-
(rollers are optimised for personal
computing (PC) and consumer
applications rather than embed-
ded designs. Microchip s new
USB PIC microcontroller family
offers the benefits or Full-Speed
USB to a broader range of appli-
cations that may operate in harsh
environments and connect to per-
sonal computers less often.

Key feature; or the new devices
include:

2 kBytes of RAM, 1 j tS byte of
which can be a dedicated USB
buffer;

256 bytes or EE PROM data mem-
ary;

E US ART module supporting
RS232, RS485 one UN" serial
interfaces ;

A taster Synchronous Sari o' Port
(MSSPl supporting l-C' v and
SPr t,r communication;
i 0- h i f A naiog-ioD ig Tta t Converter
with up to 12 channels, Two

Analog Comparators
Cop lure /Com p a re/P WM fCCPj
module with i 6-bit capture
and resolution
Enhanced

Capture, /C amp a re/PWM
(ECCPj with dead-time control
and fau ft-p rate ction inp uts
Four Timers (3 x 1 6-hit, J x 3-bifj
Programmable Brownout Reset
and Law Voltage Detect circuits
Enhances tn-Circuif Debugging
capabilities with up to three
hard wore breakpoints.

Microchip offers on extensive sei
of libraries for the most common
application classes, including the
Human Interface Device (HID).
Communication Device Class
(CDC) and custom drivers.
Microchip is a^so publishing an
application note illustrating how
to replace a serial port with o
Full-Speed USB link in a few
easy steps.

The tour new USB PtC microcon-
trollers are planned for general
sampling and volume production
in December, in several package
options. For additional informa-
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a t www. microchip.com/usb

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49

Brachion L

Does alcohol cause violent behaviour?

Peter van Herpen

Researchers af Warrick University recently discovered new
particles and dubbed them 'brachions' (from Latin brachius
which means arm). The term also has a strong association
with Brachiasaurus, one of the most ferocious creatures that
ever trod the ea rth, so clearly the newly discovered particle
related to violence in some way.

is

The experts were able to prove that a high concentration
of brachions in blood increases the risk of a person turn-
ing violent. One of the most intriguing questions is of
course how brachions end up in blood. After a good deal
of research, mostly in pubs, it turned out that brachions
are mostly (but not exclusively] present in alcoholic drinks

To everyone's surprise, the relation between brachion
concentration and the alcohol percentage is tar from tin-
ear. Also, the effect of brachions is dependent on pen
sonal Factors "ike age. body mass index [BMI] and sex.
The correlation between these factors is illustrated in
graph 1 (for females with BMI between 20 and 30).

Dr Pa of and her pubcrawling co-workers af the Univer-
sity were able to design an interesting circuit for use in

clinics, football arenas, boxing halls and prisons that
measures the brachion concentration in any liquid, show-
ing the (possible) effects on a display.

The brachion concentration is measured in a nonTnvasive
manner, using two sensors. One is an infrared sensor
measuring the absorption of infrared light, the other, a
conduction sensor. Based on □ complex formula these
two factors establish the brachion particle count in blood.
The formula is implemented in the system software.

Circuit

As a spinoff of the scientific project, a circuit was
designed specially far Elekfor readers ra enable them to
experiment. The heart or the circuit is a Siemens 30C535
processor ticking at 1 2 MHz, The sensors — here, a
common reflective light port and a simple conduction sen-
sor — are connected direct to if. For the rest, the
schematic does not amount to much. The display is con-
nected directly to port 0 via pull-up resistors [because of
the open-drain outputs) and the rotary/pushbutton is tied
to some inputs on port PI . The software may be blown
into an EPROM. Because of the experimental nature or
the circuit, pre-programmed EPROMs ore not available.

User insfrudisns

Operation

First use the rotary/pushbutton to select the sex (M/F),
then the person's length, weight and age. The software
will use these data to compute the BMI ana select the
right parameters for the graph. It is important not to tell
your test person [s] that the variable age is actually lim-
ited to 35 when 'Female is selected because apparently
women can not be older than that, nor that weight is
actually increased by 1 5 % because women as is com-

50

= 'Mc CvA'OVn- n 'itjji

E TE ETC

monly known, will always lie about this.

Next the probes are submersed In the liquid to be exam-
ined and the actual measurement may begin. It will take
about 10 seconds before the calculations begin — the
process Is easily followed on the display.

The result is expressed in brachion count per litre. A typi-
cal value tor (French) red wines (not older than 1995) is
4.37x1 0 _ : 2 brachion 5 / litre. Next, it you press the but-
ton again, you will see the effect on the test person if
he/she drinks 0.1 litre of the liquid. By repeated pressing
of the button, the amount Is increased in steps of 0,1 litre
(five key presses approximate one pint). For women, the
order of the steps is from 'none to 'Tee! like and 'feel
nothing'; and for men, from "none' to looks bigger than
it Is' . well and truly spent', J vialent . right up to 'com-

pletely plastered . Many more intermediate levels are
available in the software. We probably do not need to
fell you that Field-trialling the software was a huge under-
taking mostly done outside our office hours ana we wish
to express our gratitude to Jameson and Guinness for
their kind support.

Readers interested in obtaining the software may send on
email to edltor@elektor-elecrronics.co,uk, subject: 'bra-
chion detector April 2005k

Literature:

Brachions Elementary Pariides and their Effects

by Dr Aprit 5. Peat Warrick University publication, 2004.

■! 20D5 - ikklsr eletlicnks

51

Everything you've ever wanted

to know

Ulrich Passern

Modern mobile electronic gadgets demand ever more
portable and powerful energy storage devices. Research by
battery manufacturers all over the world moves on apace;
new developments supplant old technologies, and are
themselves almost instantly superseded by even newer
technologies. The field is in a state of constant flux with new
surprises every day.

There are three battery technologies lhat currently domi-
nate the market. The longest established and most techni-
cally outmoded is the leaded d battery. However, its
almost legendary robustness and low price guarantees its
place powering the starter motor in vehicles and for

energy storage for emeraency suDolies.

The nickel family consists of two well-known products: the
nickel-cadmium (NiCd) battery and the nickel-metal
hydride (NiMH) battery. This will soon change, as the
cadmium in NiCd batteries is harmful to the environment

52

cHuor clinics -I/20Q5

about lithium batteries...

and, under an EU regulation, the batteries wifi disappear
from the market in 2008. The industry is prepared Far this
and has driven the development of NiMH cells to the
paint where they are o match for NiCd cells in almost
every respect. NiCd and NiMH cells have a built-in
chemical 'charge reserve an a hence are relatively insen-
sitive to overcharging or to deep discharge.

For some time it has not been possible to meet the energy
requirements of modern mobile phones, laptops and
PDAs using nickel-based batteries and., unnoticed by
many o third battery family has gained considerable
importance in recent years. These are lithium-based bat-
teries: lithium-ion (Li-ion) and lithium polymer (Li-polymer),
Liihium technology has answered many researchers'’
prayers, since, with a standard electrode potential of
3.04 V, it sits at the top of the electrochemical series.
These new energy storage devices are ideally suited for
modern portable electronic equipment, since they are
light, small, and have an extremely high energy density,
it would be wrong to believe that we have reached the
end of the road: advanced battery development, espe-
cially for laptops., is leading towards even more powerful
energy sources and in a few years lithium battery tech-
nology will be overtaken. The next generation in mobile
power sources is already appearing on the horizon: the
fuel celt, on which more later.

A sensitive soul

For a long lime it was thought that engineers would not
be able to control the complex processes in a lithium cell*
However, enormous amounts of research effort have
finally paid off and now lithium batteries hove replaced
nickel batteries in almost all key applications. However,
as observant Elektor Electronics readers will know, it has
until recently been practically impossible to buy Individ-
ual Li-ion or Li-polymer cells. The reason is that it has nor
been possible to equip lithium ceils with the 'charge
reserve we mentioned earlier, and so they are extremely
prone to damage. If a Li-ion or Li-polymer cell is even
slightly overcharged, it starts to produce gases and can
rupture (Fig u re 1). the gases produced are also
extremely poisonous* If a lithium cell is heavily over-
charged it can catch fire or, in extreme cases, explode.
Since lithium is highly reactive, a lithium fire is very hard
to put out. Water behaves like petrol, aggravating the
fire, and must on no account be used on a lithium fire, li
is better to use a fire blanket, a suitable extinguisher or
even sand.

Electronic protection

The industry has replaced the 'charge reserve’ missing
from lithium cells with intelligent protection circuitry.

Fiaare ' When a

Tj"

Li-pj \ rr battery
;itf$ ruptured h
- ,' 3 «. fa

nazes, tee battery
car, exptede.

SSi

Jj

*4

it

%

llj

IT

r° tT_

nature _ he
n :eg r atea
na:: : ter'.r.g circuit*

In industrial /rmium
b j are ays
rr^crcsrocssscr-

t

can ‘robed.

short-circuit

fuse

tempers Lure
sensor

Connection lor
protection electronics

Figure 2.

‘■"o~ !cnrg L-steg
Ffuitipk sensors
p^ote c:-s tee battery
m g v e re harg in g .

ihese ore built into the battery pack (see Figure 2) and
use a number of sensors to protect the cells against over-
charging or short-circuit (Figure 3). In tests by consumer
organisations these protected battery packs have been
found to be safe. It would be irresponsible to dispense
with the safety electronics: you may remember stories in

-t TOOS-ebUit dstlrcnits

53

: 'j;: re - . Sch en i

c~ c 0-

Cv.vT=- bowery

(source: Vartoj.

Figure 5. Li -ten
baffery- rc r laptops
in 3S2P

con rig \j ro ! c r,

( J 0.8 V terminal
'■ dtogej

5S4P 6000mAh

cluster of 4 parallel cells

Figure 6. Labelling
$0i0fie for Li-ion
and . '-polymer
catteries.

5 clusters in series

Number before S lJ to be set
on charger (here: 5)

~ 2 7. A piece o*

tin is usually
ordered to —e
aluminium term's no
ci o l -co r-r -

J /

t after v_

fiacre 3 4 id.&
c 'ere of tope serves
as a strain relief for
*re ronnecOor
v, ires

the press about exploding Nokia mobile phones. Here
cheap third-party battery packs were to blame w hich
lacked short-circuit protection.

Lithium-polymer ©n top

Within the lithium family two members have been com-
peting for superiority over the last two years. The market
share of Li-ion cells has been fallrno steadily as Li-polymer
cells gain ground. I he background to this is simple; Li-ion
cells contain a liquid electrolyte and must therefore be
protected by a rather heavy steel jacket. Li-polymer cells,
on the other hand, use a polymer film to fix the electrolyte
and can be packaged in lightweight aluminium foi ! (Fig-
ure 4). [-polymer cells can therefore offer more energy
in a smaller volume and are considerably lighter than Li-
ion batteries. Nevertheless, the thin aluminium casing is
easily damaged and so Li-polymer cells must be handled
and stared carefully.

The Flat construction of the Li-polymer cell which was
described in the May 20 GO issue of Eiektor Electronics:
mokes if easy to use in many applications. A wide range
of Lhpolymer cells with capacities morn 250 mAh to
6000 mAh is available. Prices, however, are fairly high,
ranging from £ 4 for a 350 mAh cell to £ 30 for a
2100 mAh cell, depending on She qualify, capacity and
performance under bad.

High demand, especially from modellers, has meant that
over the last year many manufacturers and suppliers
have started offering individual Li-polymer ceils or ready-
assembled packs (generally without protection electron-
ics). In this connection □ warning is in order: individual
Li-polymer cells must always be stored out of the reach of
children, since they look just like outsize strips of chewing
gum osking to be unwrapped or bitten into.

Pack assembly

Li-ion and Li-polymer cells con be connected in series or

in parallel. Figure 5 shows on industrial LMan pack for

a laptop where cells are connected In parallel in pairs,

three such pairs being wired In series. Figure 6 shows

the standard markino scheme that has been developed
, , —

for these battery packs.

If you wish to build your own Li-polymer battery pock,,
there are a couple of problems to overcome, A particular
inconvenience is that the positive terminal is made of alu-
minium and cannot be soldered using normal solder. The
manufacturer therefore attaches a small solderabce metal
strip to the terminal (Figure 7) which, in accordance
with Murphy's law, Is usually on the wrong side when It
comes to assembling the pack. A better alternative Is to
use a specie, aluminium solder, which is unfortunately noi
cheap.. The thin terminal connections rend fa break easily
and a strain relief must be fitted (Figure 8). To simplify
the job of assembling packs, many manufacturers offer
special solaerable circuit boards as an accessory, or pro-
vide the cells with the connections already brought out to
a small circuit board.

Pure power

Since Li-polymer cells are available in a range of differ-
ent sizes and can be wired together info packs In various
ways, some extremely high-power units have become
available — of a price. The two Thunder Power Li-poly-

54

Olid d=cl[Gr;H - 4 '17 . 5

mer packs [see photograph of the beginning of this arli-
cle] each hove a capacity of 6 Ah. a nominal voltage of
1 8.5 V and can be handle a continuous 8 C (48 A)
iaadl The two catteries together can deliver over
1600 W, despite weighing only 1.2 kg. The pair of bat-
teries costs about five hundred pounds.

The best price-performance ratio is currently offered by
the 850 mAh HDHE cells with a weight of "t 8 g pro-
duced by Kokam. These can be discharged at up to
10 C (he., up fo 8.5 A) with peak bads up to 15 C. A
hand-soldered battery pack constructed from these cells is
shown in Figure 9. Here six cells are wired in parallel
to form a block, and five such blocks are wired in series.
The pack (5.1 An I 8.5 V, 30 cells) can deliver 5 1 A
continuously with peaks up to 76 A, has a weight of
850 g and casts about Z 250 in total.

ShorJ-circuit protection electronics

Lithium batteries must be monitored both during charging
and during discharge to ensure they are not overloaded.
Measurements show that the cells in a lithium battery
behove differently from one another both when charging
(Figure 10) and when discharging (Figure 11). Indi-
vidual monitoring of the cells is therefore recommended.
The whole battery can be monitored using a circuit along
the Sines of that shown in Figure 12: the sixcell battery
shown requires just two extra wires to allow the cells to
bs monitored individually. At present there is no standard
for these extra connections. Same manufacturers use mul-
tiple connectors (Figure 1 3),. while others use just a sin-
gle extra connector [Figure 14).

During charging a sacalled 'Li-polymer balancer circuit
(Figure 15) is connected to the extra wires for individ-
ual cell monitoring. The balancers route current past the
fully-charged ceils and thereby protect the cells (or blocks
of cells connected in parallel) from overcharging. This
allows the battery os a whole to be charged further, by
diverting the current to the other cells or blocks of cells. Li-
polymer balancers do not by themselves prevent oven
charging, but they do keep the cells in step with one
another and thus increase the total energy available.
Circuifs to monitor individual cells in lithium battery packs
are still under development. The circuits that are gener-
ally used interrupt the discharging of the battery as a
whole when a voltage or 3 V per cell is reached. Li-poly-
mer cells suffer permanent damage if discharged below
2.5 V, and so this threshold value allows tor a certain
□mount of variation between the cells in the battery pack.

Charging techniques

lithium batteries, like lead-acid batteries, are charged at
constant voltage. The charger must simply provide a
fixed voltage of 4. 1 V per cell for Li-ion batteries with □
lithium cobalt oxide cathode or 4.2 V per cell for Li-poly-
mer with a tolerance of 0.05 V per cel.. The current is
given by the formula

‘ = (Mcharger “ Ubnti) /

and falls to zero when the battery is fully charged. Over-
charging is in principle impossible and the battery can
be left connected to the charger for as long os desired,
although for safety reasons lithium batteries should never
be charged unattended. In order that the current is nor

aaurs ?. Hand-
made U- polymer
battery using rnirty
850 mAh ceth in a
:: J 6 P configuration.
The 5.1 Ah, 18.5 V
cc r '< be.Aer

currents jo to 1 C C
(51 Ah

I l

lima [5]

Figure W T^e
ir-ji vidua' := 5 "no
L:\TC y-:~r cotter/
can reach
jppsr inreshs d

‘ : w — ■ _> L_l J

l_l

■ — - ce'.f 2

-.'sere ' The ce ! b

ako- Ltsisa . behave
r-rr

D'rrererTry .v”e _
disc " urging . a r. 6
therefore mu if be
rr ant fared
indi* idua ,

F^ure 12. lihium

!_r.

re 's L'- : cn and i-
pc'y mer: can be
ru^i=z r ea h series
cr in paracel The
free re sno-vs the
pr ~ : r. e w !h NiAH

Figure . 3. E\ z ra
connections are
brought Cut J r a ibvr

‘Sur

the . id l . 0 cells

fo be monitored.

■? 2*105 - e :vtu; ='!=-:rr-"ics

55

About the author

Ulrich Passern was bom 52 years to the day after the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
Inspired by his father (an airman) at an early age, he developed □ passion for constructing and fly-
ing model aircraft. In professional life he found his second passion: electronics. After studying elec-
trical engineering he started his career at a large computer company. After founding his own engi-
neering consultancy for measurement technology, model building and profession came together in
the development of a battery testing device, which was subsequently developed into o computer-
controlled charger which was very successful bath In industry and in the world of model building.
Meanwhile, Ulrich is once more working in the field of computers and regularly carries out compar-
ative testing of batteries and chargers for the German modellers' magazine FMT.

too high when charging begins (it should not exceed
1 C) cheap chargers are simply arranged to have a suit-
able internal resistance. More advanced chargers pro-
vide proper current limiting. It is thus very easy to build a
lithium battery charger. Figure 1 6 shows the LiPo402
charger from Kokam, which easily fits in the pocket. This
charger is microprocessor controlled and can be
adjusted to suit various Li-polymer battery types. The

Figure 1 4. U-
co ■ ner batteries
..... .a crc

r

b^sc with a spec'ai
a ~ ~ " sctjr b c< c w
~b '. ‘dbcJ ce .fs
‘a de rr&nitared.

Figure 75. i f -

po ! r, mer bo fencer
-cu b fretec' me
kattury from
overcrarging a d
eep be ce c _ : j
b 5 r sc vh P: ddc

I

a r.o r her.

Figure 16. The
_ ;r b'4 2 by j -. c • "
is r modem
.i'--- roc: :r - 'ce' tot

h_-

_ -co . ms r taneris?

price is around Fifty pounds. You can of course construct
your own liihium battery charger, as Jong as you are
careful to observe the exact voltage and current threshold
values.

Ageing

Lithium batteries generally exhibit a very low self-dis-
charge and can be stored far a long time without requir-
ing attention. The inevitable ageing is minimised if it is
discharged to about 20 = d of its normal charge and
stored in a cool dry room (at about 10 degrees Celsius).
Cycle life of modern lithium batteries is similar to that of
other batteries: about 300 to 500 chorge/discharge
cycles should be achievable without difficulty if the bat-
tery is not abused. The 'memory or 'lazy battery' effect
found in nickel-based batteries does not occur in liihium
batteries, and so they need not be discharged before
charging.

The ©uflesk

The power requirements of modern mobile devices are
torever increasing, and all over the world research con-
tinues at a feverish pace on a completely new type of
energy source: the miniature fuel cel!.

in 2003 Japan identified the fuel cell as one of the six
technologies most important to the future of the Japanese
economy. Almost as scon as this was announced, three
Japanese companies simultaneously presented their
plans: NEC. Toshiba and Hitachi already have function-
ing fuel cells in their laboratories and are working on a
schedule for mass production. Hitachi's PDA fuel cell
should come onto the market In 2005.

Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is already testing
Bluetooth headsets powered by a fuel cell. To prove their
suitability ror everyday use the devices are being used in-
house by a hundred Nokia employees.

The long-term aim of the Japanese manufacturers is to
replace all currently-used batteries with suitably-sized fuel-
cel! equivalents. It is more probable, however, that the
various types will coexist, as over one hundred years of
history of the lead^acid battery shows. However things
turn out, mobile power supply devices have an exciting
future.

56

e!:bor P=nroni;s--S 'iGOS

Comparison of
energy capacities

Normally the capacity of a battery is specified in Amp-
hours (Ah). Using [his unit allows us to determine almost
immediately how long a battery can continue to provide
power under a given load. For example, to calculate
roughly how long o standard 21 W bulb can be run from
a fully-charged 44 Ah car battery:

Web pointers

The Following web sites have further information on lithium

batteries, protection circuits and chargers.

h ttp : / / www. P o w e r B ox- Sys tems.com

I = P / U = 2 1 W / 1 2 V = 1 .75 A
and

44 Ah / 1.75 A = 25 .1 h

In order to compare batteries with different termina] volt-
ages it is berter to work with the energy capacity of a cell
in Wait-seconds or Wott-hours (Whj, and the specific
energy in Wh/kg. The often (mis) used term 'energy densi-
ty' usually refers to the energy per unit volume, rather
than per unit weight.

h ttp : // www. g ro u p n e r. d e
http:/ /www. ikaru5-modellbau.de

Lithium-sutphur beifteries

Another development is lithium-sulphur [U-S] technology,
which gives a cel! voltage of 2.1 V. This should not be con-
fused with the lithium-sulphur dioxide (Li SO?] technology.

The company Sion (www.slonpowsrcom) has developed □
prototype specified at 350 Wh/kg. This is a major advance
in comparison with curreni commercially-available technolo-
gies. The NiMH cells in ihe Toyota Prius hybrid car, for
example, have a specific energy of just 46 Wh/kg The rel-
atively high specific energy is not the only benefit of this
technology: Li-S batteries can deliver very high currents, per-
form well at extremes of temperature and in principle are
immune to overcharging.

Of course, there are also disadvantages when compared
to other systems: after about 350 to 400 charge cycles ihe
capacity or even ihe most modern Li-S batteries falls to
about 8CW of its original value. For most applications a
minimum of 350 charge cycles is specified, and 500
cycles is seen as a desirable target.

One of the reasons lor the rapid ioss in capacity is an
effect whereby the composition of ihe liquid cathode slowly
changes. A film which forms on the fixed electrode during
discharge afreets the characteristics of the battery. It is diffi-
cult eg keep the ceil in a stable, effective condition.

NiMH cells with a pressure switch

Nickel-based rechargeable cells are ideal tor powering
modern electronic equipmenl such as MP3 players, mobile
communications devices or digital cameras, which require
ihe cells to be able to deliver high currents for short periods
of iime.

The ath er side of the coin is ihe ienothy charging lime, or,
alternatively the high cost of a charger that can charge the
cells quickly without (even more quicklyi destroying them.
Such 'intelligent' chargers invariably employ a micro con-
troller and temperature sensors. Of course, microcontrollers
with integrated sensors make rhe unit somewhat smoller and
cheaper, but the next step, integrating ihe intelligence info
(he cell, has foundered for reasons of cast.

Rayovac (Varra) has recently developed the socalled [-C3
cell (' in-cell charge control') . which can be recharged with-
cut using an intelligent charger in 15 minuies, and, lhanks
to irs optimised construction . also offers longer discharge
times. There is no electronics in the cell; instead there is a
small mechanical pressure switch. This is not only economi-
cal but also technically elegant: the pressure inside the cell
is a better measure of its state ihan its temperature or its
voltage. When the pressure reaches a set value (in the
range 1 COO kPa to 3500 kPa), □ sprung disc at the anede
breaks the connection: the cel! is fully charged.

15 min

Figure 1 shows this arrangement in the dosed state, when
the cell is being charged. When the cell becomes fully
charged, the sprung disc moves and pushes the contacts
apart, interrupting the current flow.

Using this patented pressure switch It is possible to use rela-
tively simple and therefore cheap fast chargers to charge a
cell in jus! \5 minutes using □ current of up to 7.5 A, wlth-

■1/2005 - r!Ater rh-rrrcNs

57

2 Rapid charging

Consumer AA cell 1,700 mAh

04016$ -11

out detriment to the life of the cell. Recharging parti ally-
charged cells is not a problem either, since the current is
reliably interrupted when the cell reaches full charge. The
cost of the charging circuit is between 30 A and 50 % less
than that of conventional fast chargers. The batteries oiso
have a higher capacity [AA size 2.0 Ah, AAA size
0.8 Ah) and are hot significantly more expensive ihon 'nor-
mal NiMH cells. Only about half the normal amount of
anode material is required to absorb the oases produced
during charging, which means fhai the cathode can be
made larger, increasing the capacity of the cell.

The I-C3 cells are not charged in a normal charger at con-
stant current bus rather using a constant voltage: this makes
the temperature rise less during charging (Figure 2). For
safety reasons the I-C3 charger also includes a timer which
stops charging offer 1 5 minutes, and a simple over-tempera-

iure switch. The fine- safety measure Is an external vent as
used in norma! NiMH cells which opens under extreme
pressure to prevent the cells from rupturing under any con-
ditions.

Zinc-polymer

The American company Zinc Matrix Power
(www.zfiip.com) offers a new rechargeable battery with a
cell voltage of 1,5 V based on zinc a materia! whose use
in batteries is well established. Using a specially-developed
polymer, capacities of up to 240 Wh./kg should be possi-
ble. . he polymer is designed to prevent the zinc oxide
which is produced during discharge from migrating around
the ceil. Without the polymer, the zinc would redeposit
haphazardly on the anode during charging, reducing its
effective surface area, and thereby reducing the current
that the cell can deliver.

Th ere is □ further effect that complicates the use or zinc In
batteries: the charging voltage causes the water in the elec-
trolyte to be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen so
unless precautions ore taken the cell wilt slowly dry out. In
practice this means that environ mentally-harmful heavy met-
als must be added to prevent the hydrogen being released.
Currently mare environmentally-friendly additives are used,
but These ore only suitable tor 'normal' cells, not : or
rechargeable ones.

Ileciric aeroplanes

Electrically-powered model aeroplanes ore no longer a rare
sight. Less well-known, however Is that recently electric
aeroplanes capable of manned flight hove entered mass
production. The first manned electric aeroplane flight was rn
1973 by an Austrian HB-3 'Crow motor glider, powered
by o 10 kW Bosch DC motor and Varta NlCd batteries with
a total weight of 125 kg. Constructor Heino Brditschka
piloted the nine minute flight himself, reaching an altitude of
300 metres.

The mass-produced aeroplanes are also motor gliders.
Despite considerable improvements in battery technology,
aeroplanes powered by electric motors are sill! limited to fly-

ing short circuits and so have some way to go before find-
ing many customers. Matters are different with modern
motor gliders, which hove o mechanism which allows the
motor and propeller to be retracted completely inside the
fuselage behind the cockpit when gliding. Motor power h
only needed far rake-off arid to gain altitude ready far glid-
ing or ior assistance in still air and at the end of a flight in
order to avoid landing far From base should the thermals
die down. The conventional solution is a relatively low-
power two- stroke engine and a small reserve or rue!. This
has several disadvantages not shared by the electric system
including noise unreliability' or operation (especially when

58

risris: f Errr-: - :cs* - 5055

sterling) and a relatively complex technology, including an
electric starter, G propeller broke and a device to slop the
propeller in the correct position all in □ very small space.
The electric motor provides a more elegant solution. The
battery unfortunately is nor as small or light as a fuel tank
and stores ess energy. However, if an electric system offers
enough power tor the particular requirements of the motor
glider then success m the market is }mi a matter of price.

The first electric motor glider with motor retraction mecha-
nism was the AE-1 Silent by Air Energy of Aachen in
Germany [w ww.airenergy.de) which took off on Its first
flight in 1997 and received German type certification os an
ultralight aircraft (12 m wingspan, 200 kg net weight) in
1998. The electric motor Is rated at 13 kW and weighs

8.5 kg 'while the NiMH battery weighs 40 kg and stores
1 .4 kVv h. Air Enero'. is currently working on o derivative
using considerably more po werful Li-ion baiteries.

The move from NiMH batteries to Li-ian batteries has
already been made by Lange Hugzeugbau at Zweibrucken
in Germany jwvAv.langeTlugzeugbau.cam) in their An tares
motor glider which mokes optimal use of the available tech-
nologies and which sets a new standard among such craft.
The propulsion system uses a brushless permanent magnet
DC motor with an external rotor with a rated power of
42 kW a torque of 250 Nm and an efficiency or

98.5 c =(l], weighing only 28 kg. The motor was developed
at HTA Biel in Switzerland, Seventy -two Safi [www_50ft.fr)

VL 41 M Ll-icn cells are used for energy storage. The indi-
vidual cells have □ capacity of 39 Ah at 3.6 V, far a total

of about 76 kg. The
An T ares con climb to 1 000 m in under four minutes and to
rhe maximum 3000 m in 13 minutes. Without thermals this
altitude is sufficient T or 1 ,5 hours of gliding and gives a
range or over 150 km. The electronics handles propulsion
system control and battery monitoring on a includes a built-in
charger [8 h charging time at 230 V), The Sort VL cells
used here should achieve a life of 1000 cycles over 1 1
years. Information on the cells and a data sheet car be
found at wvAV.5aft.fr.

of 1 0. 1 kWh at 260 V with a weight

Of course, people's minds have already turned to ihe possi-
bility of electric ceropfanes powered by fuel cells. An
American team supported by Boeing originally announced
that they would make a first flight on 1/ December 2003
(the hundredth anniversary or powered flight), bur at the
time of writing there ore no indications that a successful
flight has ye* taken place.

4. 2C05 - sir 1 fit cizdtedtt

59

increasingly common in new electronics
equipment. They are superior in terms of both size and
weight compared to NiCd and NiMH batteries. However, the
charging method for LiPo cells is completely different from
other battery types. In this article we present a simple but
effective charger for this type of battery.

60

ikJtfer ftroTiks * | j 2C05

Lithium-polymer batteries are fre-
quently used these days in small elec-
tronic equipment such as cellphones,
PDAs and the like. In these applica-
tions it is important to toe manufac-
turer that the battery being used is as
small and light as possible. It is also
important, of course, that the battery
has enough capacity so that the user
does not need to charge it every day.
Taking all these considerations into
account, you will quickly arrive at
LiPos (Lithium- Polymer batteries).
Tnere are. however, a few disadvan-
tages when using LiPos. Not all LiPos
are able to deliver large currents. They
can usually deliver a maximum current
of IOC (see inset). There are notable
exceptions, however, some LiPos being
able to deliver 20 C or 30 C of current 1
Another important consideration that
needs to be taken into account is the

CHARGE: Q.SCmA, CC/CV, 4.2V P 1/20CmA Cut-off, at 23 n 2 ; C

TIME [min]

KOD1Q - 12

Figure LCharging characteristic of a UPo cell. At a constant charging current the
cell voltage rises slowly to 4.2 V!

Figure 2. Jhe schematic consists of the charger section a round the special charger tC type LTto W and an indicator section
around /C2a/fa.

4 2Q05-d=Ucr ekctrtnics

61

CURRENT [mA] & CAPACITY |mAh]

Figure 3 , The FCB for the charger makes construction very straightforward [ ftememfcer to fit ihe wire link between K2 and C2.

COMPONENTS

LIST

Resistors:

R1 = 49kQ9 1%

R2 = 1 2k04 1%

R3 - 2700
R4 = 1 fkQ3 1%

R5 - 4kQ87 \%

R6 RS R9 R14.R1 8 = IkO
R7 = IQ 2W
RIO = 3GIkQ 1%

R1 1 = 174kO 1%

R12 = IkQ5 \%

R 1 3 = ion

Rio - 12 Ikn 1%

R 1 a = 60kO4 1%

R17 = 30kni ]%

different charging method. In addition,
LiPo batteries are very sensitive io
in correct use. It is not entirely impos-
sible that this type of battery can catch
hie or even explode when used incor-
rectly! So. when designing a charger
for LiPo batteries, a few rules have to
be obeyed.

Charging M e iik <s > ei

When charging a LiPo battery, two
things have to be monitored, namely
the current and the voltage. Manufac-
turers always supply a recommended
charging current in terms of C (nomi-
nal capacity in ampere-hours). This
value is usually in the range from IC to
20. In addition, the maximum voltage
may never be exceeded. This is
(depending on the manufacturer) 4.2 or
4,25 V per cell.

Our charger is actually a power supply
that is both current and voltage lim-

Ri 9 - IkQ ]%

R20 - 27kO
R21 = 4kn7

Capacitors:

C1.C5 = IOilF 25V radial
C2.C3.C4.C6..C9 = lOOnF
C7 - 1 pF 25V radial
C8 = 2uF2 25V radial
ClGXZil = 680nF

Inductors;

LI = suppressor coil 35uH >2A (e.g.
Dig i key # M5727-ND)

Semiconductors:

DT - 1N5400 [e.g., Digikey#
i N 5 4 0 0 R LOSC T-N D)

D2,D3 = 3 1DQ04 (e.g. Dlaikey #

3 1 DQ04-ND)

04 = [ED. red taw-currenl

ited. A typical charging curve for a
LiPo battery is shown in Figure 1. The
current is cons rant at the beginning of
the charging cycle. While charging, the
voltage increases slowly to about 4.2 V
From that moment on, the voltage
remains constant and the current will
decrease slowly

The charging process is just about
completed when the current has
dropped to about 0.0 5C. At that point
the batter, 7 is nearly full and any addi-
tional charging is happening only very
slowly.

The circuit

Figure 2 shows the complete
schematic for the charger. At its cen-
tre is an IC from Linear Technology,
the LT151Q. This IC contains a step-
down converter together with a cur-
rent and voltage limiter, so that for a

D5 - LED. green, low-currenl

fCl = L i 5 1 CCN (Linear Technology,
\vwwJi near, cam]

lC2 = TLC272CP [e.g., Digikey # 296-
1 824-5-ND)

IC3 = LM385BLF’2,5 (e.g. Dial key n
296-9559-5-ND)

T1 = BC557

Miscellaneous:

5 1 r S2 = switch, an/off

K1 = 2 -way FCB terminal black, feed
pitoh 5mm

K2 = 1 0-way (2x5) plnheoder with 1
jumper

fill = 2 PCB solder pins [battery
connection]

1 wire link

Enclosure , e.g., Hammond type 159 IB

FCB ref. 050010-1 available from
TheFCBShoo

i

complete charger, only a handful of
external parts have to be added.
Because of the step-down converter,
the charger is quite efficient and no
additional heat sulking is necessary.

The converter requires only an exter-
nal inductor, diodes and a capacitor for
the boost circuit. The regulator oper-
ates at a reasonably high frequency
(about 200 kHz), so the inductor (LI)
can he quite small.

Adjustments

The charger, as drawn here, is
intended for two LiPo cells in series.
The maximum voltage of 4.2 V per cel 1
must never be exceeded. That is why
we have selected a maximum voltage
of B.2 V (4.1 V per cell). This adjust-
ment is accomplished until resistors R4
and R5. The IC ensures that the volt-
age at pin 5 (OVF) does not exceed
2.365 V. Toe voltage at QVP is equal to:

62

clffStbr cEidredo ■ 4 20 jS

Current, C and batteries

Whenever we ore discussing batteries, the term r C appears aver and over again.
For many of you. Shis may cause contusion. However the concept is quite easy.

The term 'C is used ro indicate the amount or charging and discharging current or
a battery. With inis i C is the current that a full battery can deliver for a continu-
ous stretch of one hour. Wish a battery of 1000 mAh ihis is therefore a current or
1000 mA (1 A). If we charge the ceil with 0.5C in theory it can deliver fhis cur-
rent For two hours.

An important property of a battery is its capacity [expressed in mAh] and iss cur-
rent raring (the maximum current that a battery con supply, usually expressed in
C). Common values ore 2C 10C end 12C.

For instance, assume you want to use a LtPc battery for your own circuit that
requires □ peak current of about 1 A. The battery has to be able to supply this cur-
rent. The manufacturer offers several type or LiPo, each rated for a maximum Scad
current or 2C. Our battery therefore, needs to have □ minimum capacity' of
500 mAh (2C = 2 x 5CQ = 1000 mA]. Only Shea you can be reasonably confi-
dent that the LiPo battery can actually supply this current!

V OVP = V batc x R5/(R4-R5)

When the voir age across the battery Is
equal to 3.18 V, the voltage at pin 5 will
be 2.47 V. In this way the iC ensures
that the voltage cannot rise any further
and the voltage across our battery can-
not become too high.

If the charger needs to charge three
ceils in series, we can easily adjust the
value of R4 so that the iC will limit the
voltage at 4. 1 x 3 V. Ar a value of 19k6
for R4. the voltage will be limited at
12.39 V. This is equivalent to 4.13 V per
cell.

Since the cells are very sensitive to the
applied voltage, as already mentioned,
it is very important that R4 and R5 are
resistors with IT: tolerance. That way,
the worst-case voltage will ultimately
be no more than IT- greater than
intended. Also, the IC itself is not 10Q : :
accurate. That is why we designed for
a cell voltage of 4.1 V instead of 4.2 V.
We can now be sure that the maximum
voltage will not he exceeded!

Since we are using a step-down regula-
tor, the circuit needs to be supplied
with a voltage that is a few volts
higher than the desired charging volt-
age for the battery. Consequently, a
battery with two cells in series can
easily be charged with a power supply
voltage of 12 V When there are three
cells in series, the power supply needs
to increase ro a minimum of about 15 VI

Current

The adjustment of the current is done
simply with a resistor between ground
and pin 13 (PROG) of ICL C7 and R3
are necessary to stabilise the regula-
tion loop: never omit these compo-
nents! When switch 31 is open. R1
determines the maximum current that
the IC will deliver. The formula is:

! :=:w = 2.465 ■ (2000 /HI) or
Rl"= 2.465 x (2000 I_ = _ : ).

in out circuit Ri has a value of 49k9.
This sets the current to about 100 mA.
When switch SI is closed, the IC 'sees'
a resistance value equal to the parallel
value of Rl and R2. In this case, we
have 49k S in parallel with 12k4, result-
ing in a resistance of about 9k93. Using
the above formula, a charging current
of about 500 mA is obtained.

If you would like to increase the charg-
ing current, be aware that the peak
currents are much higher than the pro-
grammed average current. This current

flows, among others . through Dl, D2
and D3. the inductor and also the IC, In
addition, you have to make sure that
the recommended charging current of
the battery is not exceeded!

Charging Indicator

A disadvantage of the LT1510 is that
there is no output available indicating
how much current the IC is actually
delivering. Tills would he a useful indi-
cation as to whether the charger is still
doing something. To still be able to
measure the current, resistor R7 is
included in the current loop (the volt-
age drop across R7 is, after all, a meas-
ure of the output current of TCI). The
voir age across R7 is amplified by
opamp IC2a. IC2b compares this sig-
nal with a fixed voltage of 2,85 V. When
the voltage at the inverting input of
IC2b is lower than 2.85 V, the opamp
will rum on the LED. indicating that
the current has dropped below a cer-
tain value. The measuring method
used here is not very accurate but suf-
ficient to provide an indication of the
state of the charger. If desired, resistor
R7 can be replaced with an accurate
ammeter.

The voltage gain of IC2a is adjustable
with a jumper on K2. This jumper
selects the resistor value for the feed-
back resistor for this on amp and thus
the voltage gain. Next to K2 is shot™
to what value the current has to be
reduced to (approximately) in order for
LED D5 to come on.

Construction of the

circuit

Figure 3 shows the PCB layout
designed for the LiPo charger. The
design is quite spacious so the mount-
ing of the parts should be easy. Note
the polarity when fitting the diodes,
electrolytic capacitors and ICs and
don't forget the wire link between K2
and C2. IC2 can be fitted in a socket,
but is better if TCI is soldered directly in
the board (or use a good quality socket
with turned pins! 1.

Fit a jumper to K2 for the desired cur-
rent for the LED indie aror. It is best to
choose a value close to the C/10 rat-
ing of the battery. The circuit is now
ready to charge a battery. The batter/
is connected to pins BTL Now con-
nect a mains adapter (which has ro
be rated for the desired output cur-
rent) to K1 and plug it into a mains
outlet. During the charging process,
you can check the proper operation
by measuring the voltage across rhe
battery (8.2 V maximum with two
cells) and the voltage drop across R7
(a measure of the charging current,
0.1 V at 100 mA),

if this is all correct, you can build the
circuit into an enclosure with a few
suitable connectors for the power sup-
ply and the battery. This makes it
much more convenient when moving it
around.

4 2CD5 - Tw:t TaifcTn

63

Quasar Electronics Limited

PQ Box 6535, Bishops Sfcrtford

Ci. '23 4WP, United Kingdom

Tel: QB7Q 246 1826

Fax: 0B7O 4GG 1045

E-mail: sales@quasaretectronics.com

Web: www.Qua sa rE lectro n ics.co m

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66

news & new products

Support for Silicon Labs CB051F12X and €8051 FI 3x MCUs

Crossware has added full sup-
port to its 8051 Development
Suite tar the Si. icon Laboratories
(v/ww.sila bs.com) C805 1 F I 2X
and C8051F13X mixed signal
microcontroller units (MCUs).
The Silicon Laboratories chips
feature advanced pipelining and
caching and a phase locked
loop which together allow tine
core to run at up to ICO MIPS.
A multiply and accumulate
(MAC | engine can also perform
a 1 6-bit signed multiplication in
two cycles.

The Crossware enhancements
allow developers to rapidly
exploit the advanced features ot
these chips by providing □ than
ough combination or wizards,
simulation debugging, compiler
extensions and pre'Configu ra-
tion. Code Creation Wizards
are provided for ail on-chip
peripherals. They allow the
phase locked loop to be rapidly
configured to exploit the
100 MIPS maximum perform-
ance and with trie compiler and
libraries using multiplication
code that exploits the MAC
engine developers can instantly
take full advantage of the speed
oFfered by ihess chips.

The Crossware environment is

fully pre-can tig urea
to take advantage of
the MCUs

128 kByles of in-sys-
tem programmable
banked flash and
when simulating ana
debugging ihe bank-
ing process is virtu-
ally transparent to
the developer. In
addition, the flash
memory Code Cre-
ation Wizard will
generate all the cede
necessary to erase
and rewrite flash
memory during pro-
gram execution.

Cross wore* source
level debugger drives
the Silicon Lob ora to
ries’ JTAG emulation
cartridge directly,
i his allows it to moke
use of the full range of on-chip
debug Facilities including the
hardware data breakpoints and
hardware stack overflow and
underflow trao.

Crosswares 8051 development
suite includes a full featured
ANSI C compiler, a relocatable
cross-assembler, an advanced
overlay linker a state of the art

source level simulator that can
be extended to simulate a com-
plete target system and a debug
monitor which supports source
I eve I debugging on ihe target
sysTem itself. Ail of these inte-
grate imo Crossware's Embed-
ded Development Studio devel-
opment environment to bring
Together the only single vendor

tool set that con oe used to
develop an d fully debug 805 1
programmes both with and with-
out 1 hardware.

Gosware Products, Old Post House,
Silver Street, Lit ling ton,

Royston SG8 OQE.

Tel (+44) (0)1763 353330.

Website: VAVw.crossware.co.uk

Sweeping Changes in your Application

Lascar's new SP5 I 7 1 OBL has a
large clear LCD that shows a
1 7-posilion analogue style dis-
play. Essentially a voltmeter with
a full scale deflection of I V this
module con be used in many
places where a quick indication
or level rather than an exact
reading may be required. The
needle on ihe 5P5 l 7 1 0-BL can
be centre or left justified to suit a
variety ci applications and ihe
LCD features a permanent colour
scale ond markers to help gauge
the STatus or the measurement.
The ui:ra low profile, splash
proof housing aiso contains a

vivid green LED backlight that
allow* the module io be seen in
all environments.

The P5 1710-BL has been
designed tor ease ot use in small
and hioh volumes. It is a val fable
directly from Lascar at a price of
£21.95 plus VAX.

[□scar Electronics Limited, Module
Hose, Whiteparish, Salisbury,

Wiltshire SP5 2SJ.

TeL (+44) (0)1794 884567,

Fax (+44) (0)1794 884616.

Website: wwwjascarelectrDmcs.com

4 2005 -Elf !.[■:+ elsElicnici

67

start here

12V

Spark

Transmitter

Markus flindhammer

In 1896 Marconi successfully
covered a distance of about 3 km
using electromagnetic waves. A
little later, he established radio
contact across water between
Lavernock Point, South Wales
and Flat Holm Island. The trans-
mitter consisted of a spark indue*
tor coupled to a dipole antenna.
At the receiver side, he used
another dipole and a glass tube
Riled with silver and nicks! Filings,
the scrolled coherer. The Filings
enabled the coherer to act os a
‘defined" bad contact wish the RF
pulse energy 'rattling' the contact
and thus driving the audio ampli-
fiers connected to She output.

The circuit shown here operates
on he same principle. Admittedly
it dees not cover the same dis-
(ante as Marconi's extensive
radio equipment, but then you do
not need to start Filing away on
the family’s silver cutlery! The
transmitter consists of an empty (I)
disposable cigarette lighter with
□ piezo spark mechanism. On
the gas nozzle of the empty
lighter you solder a 30-cm long,
1 -mm diameter (20 SWG] solid

brass wire which acts as an
antenna. When the spark button
is pressed, the antenna briefly
radiates electromagnetic energy
in the VHP PM Frequency band.
The effect is easy to verify by
holding the transmitter dose to an
PM radio and 'firing' it!
Compared with the primitive
transmitter, our receiver is a more
up to date design realised in 'oil
solid-siate" electronics. A tele-
scopic antenna picks up the tronsr
matter's RF energy and applies it
to a resonant circuit consisting of
an inductor and o capacitor. The
electrical signal is rectified by a
Germanium diode (AAxxx or
OAxx) and amplified by a dar-
ling fan stage. The collector oF the
second transistor causes voltage
changes at pin 4 of the bistable
(flip-flop) 1C type 4013. The
receiver sensitivity can be
adjusted using preset PI. Each
time the transmitter sparks away,
the Pip-flop toggles and switches
the LED on or off. As a circuit vari-
ation, you may want to use a
relay instead of a LED to allow
lamps, a TV set, motors or actua-
tors to be switched on and off
using your primitive' spark trans-
mitter. Your friends will be
impressed.

Flashing Light
with Dimmer

Myo Min

Most cheap emergency flashing
lights at Fixed locations employ
glass-based bulbs to generate
light. The typical filament bulb is
fragile, has a short lifetime and
requires a (relatively) high volt-
age. Ta overcome these disad-
vantages, the author designed
the above circuit, using □ solid-
state light source, a dimmer
function and readily available
ICs, all aiming at maximum
compactness.

In a Poshing light unit ultra-bright
LEDs hove distinct advantages
over normal LEDs and or course
glass-based bulbs. 1C 1 with Rl,
R2, PI and Cl supplies the
pulse width modulated (PWM) sig-
nal that will drive the uftrabrights
ai a constant frequency. PI
allows you to adjust the bright-
ness. Additional drivers are not
necessary as the NE555 can
source currents up to 200mA. If
you need mare light aurput, sim-
ply add some more LED strings
R3 r D2-D6); up to 8 strings may
33 connected in parallel with the
one shown.

1C 2 with P2, R4 and C4 forms
another osrable multivibrator that
sinks the LED string current
according to Flash rate.

Preset P2 controls rhe flash rate.
C2 and C3 are decoupling
capacitors to ensure stable opera-
tion at high and law frequencies.
The circuit is best powered by a
12 VDC adapter with regulated
output, or a step-up converter cir-
cuit around, say, a MAX761 and
same AA batteries. For the latest
blue and white LEDs, it is neces-
sary to consider curreni limiting
resistor. R3 r and the number of
LEDs in the siring. For 1C! the
PWM frequency is calculated
tram

F = (1 .44 / (PI Cl))

The frequency must be greater
than 5 kHz to eliminate flicker
effects.

For IC2. the design equation is
the some (but using 'he values of
P2 and C 2 ) . The flash rate
should be adjusted between
0,5 Hz and 5 Hz.

63

dsteks -T2C0S

u

£

tj

Rev Counter for
Moped s

Peter van der Ma are!

Older mopeds are not usually fit-
ted with □ rev counter, which is
a bit of a shortcoming- The mak-
ing or finding oF a suitable indi-
cator instrument or display is
often the greatest obstacle for
the hobbyist. The author of this
circuit has devised a practical
solution to this problem in the
shape of a (cheap) bicycle com-
puter. Such bicycle computer is
easily attached to the handle-
bars and it usually has a large
and very readable display.

The moped engine's generator is
used fa detect the rev speed. The
generator is connected directly
to the engine drive shah and
generates an AC voltage for the
on-board electrical system. The
frequency of this voltage corre-
sponds with the rev speed of the
engine. This frequency, however,
is tod high to be used directly by
the bicycle computer. The solu-
tion For this is to divide the fre-
quency of the signal by 16,
using a binary counter of the
type 7493, before connecting it
to the cycle computer.

The generator signal is first rec-
tified by Dl, R1 and D2 and
then limited to 2.5 V. Transistor
T1 turns if into a usable logic
signal. Counter ICl contains
tour flip-flips, one after the
other, which divides the signal
by 16. This signal drives, via
T2, the white LED D3. LDR R6
reacts to the blinking LED and is
connected to the cycle computer
in place of the supplied wheel
sensor.

The generator signal also sup-
plies the power for She circuit.
D4/C1 provide rectification
and Filtering, after which the
voltage is regulated to 5 V by
T3 and D4 T

For a correct read-out (calibrated
rev counter), the bicycle com-
puter needs to be adjusted for a
wheel circumference of 889 mm
or 89 cm (wheel diameter
28 inch].

Make sure that when building
the circuit if is suitably protected
against vibration and moisture.
Mount the LED and LDR directly
opposite each other and keep in
mind that they need to be well
shielded from ambient light.

4 3005 - dd.tar electronics

[Source Level Debug.

ant Driver Support with
ibraries.

Time Multitasking OS with

free run time licence

Unlimited email support

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Unit 17-18 Zone 'D' Chelmsford Rd. Ind. Est
Great Dunmow, Essex CM6 1XG

Telephone: 01371 875644

email: sales@cms.uk.com

E-OM1UNE

Pick:

your micro

What things can you do with a microcontroller? Which type
do you need for a particular application? Where do you
obtain one? These questions are not easy to answer, that is
why a number of manufacturers provide a helping hand.

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"All sorts of things "; "Well, pick something, it all
depends on what you want"; " Order on-line or from
your friendly retailer around the corner../'; These are
the kind of answers you could expect from someone who
deals with these things on a regular basis. Well, that

was a great deal of help! And what now?

Elsewhere in this issue ihere Is an explanation of the
things you need to keep in mind when selecting a micro
controller. There we show a handy list of web addresses
that you can use when looking for the 'best' microcon-

eW*M Elertro.nl rs ■ 4/1005

trailer for your application. There is unfortunately no
(free) website to be found where you can enter all the
parameters for o particular application and which subse-
quently suggest a chip type, manufacturer and supplier.

At EEM ICmaster [1] under the link "microcontroller it
is possible to do a parametric search per manufacturer
However, it is necessary to register first, but this is free
and we have not yet had a problem with spam.
Notional Semiconductor [2] offers the possibility,
on the internet, to select a microcontroller from a prod-
uct table. You subsequently can make a choice regard-
ing the application, which leads you to another page
where you can choose, based on the parameters of the
desired chip.

On the Keil Software website [3] you can perform a
parametric search of the chips supported by the software
fro m this company. Here you can, for example, easily
search for an ARM micro with certain specifications.

The Philips website [4] has a catalogue overview. Here
yau can look up the specifications for each chip. This
applies only to products from Philips, of course. Unfortu-
nately there is no parametric search facility available.
Renesas [5], established by the well known Hitachi and
Mitsubishi Electric companies, does offer a parametric
search option. At the tap right of the page there is a link
to "parametric search'. This link leads to a page where
you have to choose the product category. In this case we
select the MPU/MCU product category. This results in a
conveniently arranged table where you can enter all the
desired parameters.

Zilog [6] too, offers the possibility to do a parametric
search of their product database, just as Freescale
Semiconductor [7]. The latter Is pari of the more per-
haps more familiar Motorola. At Freescale we also find
the parametric search option in the top right corner.
When we follow this link we get to choose from several
different types of products, fn this case we again select
the (B-, 1 6- or 32-bit) microcontrollers, or course. We
then get a small list where we can tick the desired
search options. Ticking everything obviously results in
the greatest amount of choice. On the next page
(finally) we have the possibility of entering the desired
features and retrieve ihe part number of the controller
that meets the criteria.

Infineon [8], which is well known to microcontroller
enthusiasts, also has microcontrollers in its product line-
up, After making an initial selection between 8- 16- or
32-bit controllers you get a page where you can choose
from quite a few parameters.

Texas Instruments [9] has o wide selection of micro-
controllers, Via 'Microcontrollers" (in the blue 'Products"
field) we con choose from a number of controller fami-
lies. On the page that now opens there is more informa-
tion about different families and there is the possibility
to search for a particular controller, A visit to the "Tech-
nical Documents' section is certainly worth the effort
(link on the left) .

Finally we provide the link to the website from Wkhit
Sirkhote [10], where a number of projects are
described. Here is a selection of nice and possibly also
educational projects that can easily be the trigger for a
new project idea.

I' ZOOS - df'.t jf ei Edrc-rcLs

71

New Road 1

Automated toll colH@ction

Ekkehard Scholz

If you are planning to drive a lorry over to Continental Europe you
wont get far on any motorway before running into a toll system.
Germany's sophisticated new neKvork using GPS, GSM and
infrared technology has only been up and running since the
beginning of the year but the Department of Transport and UK
Customs and Excise are watching closely and have announced
their intention to introduce a similar system in the UK.

72

e!skfor elcdrcnits- 4/2005

After □ long and protracted birth the new German motor-
way tall collection system for Heavy Goads Vehicles
(HGVsj is finally up and running. Among its innovative
features are the use of in-cab GPS positioning systems
and automated toll collection. Traffic How will no longer
be impeded by tollbooths and road construction/mainte-
nance casts will be kept to a minimum without the tradi-
tional toll collection infrastructure. The specification for
this new toll system was very demanding and included
these main requirements:

— The toll levy takes Into account the amount of pollution
produced by the HGV and its axle count,

— The system must allow for a variable foil levy (accord-
ing to the time of travel and road section used).

- Toll collection must be performed automatically without
the need for the lorry to stop at a tollbooth (free flow
system). An On Board Unit (OBU) fitted In the HGV
vehicle takes core of this aspect of toll collection.

- Drivers of lorries without OBU J s must be able to pre-
book a journey manually using special terminals
installed in petrol stations, service areas or be able to
so on-line.

In addition to fulfilling these requirements the system com-
ponents should be flexible enough to support other Euro-
pean toll systems. This should encourage deployment of
the equipment into other European countries.

Toll payment

with the windows wound up

The new toll system requires an On Board Unit (OBU) fo
be fitted to the dashboard of every HGV (Figure 1 i. This
unit is about ihe size of a standard car radio and per-
forms automatic toll registration when the truck drives
onto a stretch of toll road. The driver Is not required to
book the journey or register any paperwork. Each OBU
has the individual HGV specification programmed into it
when it Is first installed in the vehicle.

When the lorry is started the OBU switches on and reads
all preioaded information. At the beginning of any jour-
ney the lorry will not necessarily be in the some configu-
ration os the last so the driver can enter details for each
trip indicating:

-The gross weight of the lorry (a lorry without its trailer
may weigh less than 12 tonnes and thus travel toll
free) .

Figure J. Tbe da s/i mo unfed On-Board Unit (OBU) automatically
logs motorway toll sections. The driver can input vehicle
configuration variables fe.g. the lorry may be travelling without a
trailer). { Picture: C run dig)

- The number of axles In use (the toll levy will depend on
the type of trailer fitted).

- Whether the HGV is starting a new journey or if it is
just a continuation of the previous journey.

- The cost centre that will be used. (This optional input
helps the transportation company to identify the particu-
lar truck and journey on Its monthly toll statement).

Once the data has been entered the OBU will be

active. It will now use information from its GPS receiver

4/MS - dek lor elatrcjiiu

73

pick-off

Figure 2. Using GF5 (Global Positioning System) together with
Tachograph and gyro scape data the OBU pin paints the truck
position on a stored digitised map to a resolution of 10 m. Any fell
payable is relayed to the central toll office using a mobile phone
(GSM) network, (Picture: Toll Collect)

along with other positional data (Figure 2) to compare
its coordinates v/ith a digitally stored map of the motor-
way system and determine if a toll is payable for the
stretch of rood that it is on. The positioning works on
the same principle os an in-car navigation system. Addi-
tional motion sensors are used to improve the system
accuracy. A gyroscope fisted with piezo siroin sensors
provides inertial information while data from the vehi-
cles tachograph supplies speed and distance informa-
tion. This dead-reckoning system functions independ-
ently of the GPS system. The vehicle positional data
from both systems are continually compared. The dead
reckoning system ensures the OBU can maintain its
positional accuracy for short periods when there is no
GPS signal available.

The OBU calculates the toll based on the current tariff
and road section that the lorry is travelling on. The tall is

stared and then sent to the toll control centre using a
mobile (GSM) phone link (see Figure 3). The data is
sent periodically eiiher when the toll tally reaches a pre-
defined level or after a set time interval.

300 control gantries

A vital part of i he toll system responsible for vehicle
detection and communication is mounted on the 300
overhead gantries [gales) scattered over the German
motorway network. As a vehicle approaches the gantry,
a detection and tracking unit [developed by Daimler-
Chrysler) uses D5RC (Dedicated Short Range Communi-
cations) to sense [he vehicle position ana determine
when it will pass the gantry. At this point a 3D outline is
captured and the vehicles weight category assessed.

Any truck with a gross weight of less than ] 2 tonnes is
not liable for duty so all information collected on this
vehicle is erased.

When it is determined that duty is payable, equipment
mounted an the gantry interrogates ihe vehicle using
DSRC infrared signals to determine if an OBU is fitted.
When no reply is received o toll violation will be indi-
cated if the driver has not previously booked the journey.
A camera now records the registration number ond
passes it to the central toll office where it can be automat-
ically compared to all the registration numbers for manu-
ally pre-boaked journeys. If the journey has been booked
all vehicle data is again erased. Where no match is
found a toll violation incident is recorded.

Policing the system

Situated behind arou nd halF of the control gantries are
areas where the motorway officials can pull aver vehicles
For investigation. The gantries are equipped with two-way
radio links allowing motorway officials situated in a park-
ing area or by an exit to communicate with the toil cen-
Ire. Information relating to toll-evading vehicles will be
available in a matter of seconds aher it has passed the
contra! gantry.

GPS satellite provides navigation data

on-board unit

t. in-vehicle
Installation

road

transport

company

A

2 . vehicle 3. OBU detects 4. 03U dstnets 5. check G., OBU calculates

data entered position toll-charged (stationary toll charge

road section and moving)

destination

1 ■

!vX

8. Toff Central invoices road transport company

7. amount due sent
to Toll Central by GSM

Figure 3. Automatic toll collection for o truck with an OBU fitted. (Picture: Toll Collect)

74

eklilnr tlcdrcnle -4/2005

There is also a ream of around 300 mobile patrol units
spread over the entire network carrying out checks on the
moving traffic 24 hours a day ensuring that the rolls are
enforced. These units operate in the Flow of traffic allow-
ing the operators to check vehicle details to determine if
the toll is payable. The mobile unit can also determine if
the HGV is registered with the roll system ond if the axle
count is correct. Any HGV not registered will be checked
with all the pre-boaked vehicles stored in the central data
bank and if there ts no match the lorry will be pulled over
and investigated. A fine will be registered if the toll has
not been paid.

Both the Fixed automatic vehicle recognition and mobile
units collect vehicle details without interrupting ihe flow of
traffic. The system checks if the correct toll has been paid
but does not perform fine collection.

The vehicle position can be pinpointed on any of the
5,200 sections of rood that make up the ] 2,000 km$ oF
motorway in Germany. The present system is relatively
new and so far only the basic features have been imple-
mented to prove this new technology. In ihe coming year
we con expect to see the concept of "road pricing' come
one step closer when trucks are kitted out with the next
generation (dynamic) OBU version 2,0 to allow the inclu-
sion of major roads in the scheme. This should prevent
HGV drivers taking alternative routes to avoid tolls.

Here in the UK, best estimates indicaie that an equivalent
system for heavy goods vehicles will not be functioning
before 2008 and any universal rood-pricing scheme will
not be introduced before 2014. The Department or Trans-

port hove indicated shot this system could be applicable
to the UK motor way network if the OBU can resolve vehi-
cle position to within 60 m (poorer resolution could result
in vehicles incurring tolls when travelling on free roads
running parallel fo toll roads). The German company
who developed the system (Toll Direct] claim the system
has a positional resolution of 10 m.

The existing motorway gantries fitted with vehicle recognition
sensors for tali collection. (Picture: Tell Colled

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Electronics in the last 12 Months. Offer Subject to Availability.

ilektor SC/MP
Computer (1978)

Jan Buiiing

If is safe to soy that anyone who
wishes to maintain a serious
interest in electronics [...} must
get to grips with microprocessor
technology. The implications of
the microcontroller revolution ore
so tar reaching that anyone who
fails to do so will become hope-
lessly out of dare, [..}

Preface to a new magazine on
the latest 51 2-bif microcontrollers
running at 300 GHz? Strong-
worded bur unimpressive com-
mercial advice from Microchip
or Atmel?

No, you just read me preface to
a series of articles started In
November 1977 describing
Elektor's SC/MP Microcontroller
System.

The impact of the series was
enormous, very few competitors
having had the audacity to bite
the ?P bullet. And controversial
it was, too, staunch supporters of
good old analogue and digital
design declaring that the micro-

processor in the hands of the
home worker meant the end of
hobby electronics.

SC/MP stands for Simple Cost-
effective Microprocessor. The
product was officially coiled I S P-
8A/500D and came from
National Semiconductor. A later
version of the chip employing N-
MOS technology was dubbed
ISP-8A/60GD.

The SC/MP. housed in a 40-pin
DIP case belongs in ibe category
of very early microprocessors.,
sporting a traditional structure
with registers an accumulator
and the ability to address exter-
nal memory. As such, if was
Notional Semiconductors
attempt at securing market
share. Not a very successful
attempt, as It turned out later,
Intel Motorola. Signeiics and
even RCA competing fiercely in
a then totally new arena.
Reportedly the then almighty
Elekfor Editor-imChief in the end
decided to swing towards the
SC/MP in favour the Motorola
6800 because the NS product
was... cheaper!

From the start, the Elekfor
SC/MP was o cluttered system,
despite attempts at making
wiring diagrams look as orderly

as possible. If the Efektor proto-
type shown on □ photograph in
the November 1977 issue is just
■'two boards strung together with
lots of wires' the overage reader
was sure to make an even
greater mess of it.

But tf all worked — readers dili-
gently etched and drilled their
own PCBs, faithfully typed in
Iona hex listings from the mag-
azine pages, and started send-
ing their programs and home-
made extension circuits to Elec-
tor. Within months she SC/MP
was Famous and occasionally
we still meet older (not neces-
sarily wiser...) readers proudly
telling us the SC/MP was the
first computer they built to
impress their triends and family
members with.

The publication of the basic
SC/MP system was followed by
several J bits-and-babs' articles
discussing subjects like BASIC,
she Singing SC/MP a disassem-
bler, an RF modulator, a 300-
baud tape/record interface, a 4-
K RAM board, games like Luna
and Key pi ay, and the famous
Elbug monitor. Going from
strength to strength, an after-
burner effect occurred when
were published and the SC/MP

was again mentioned in combi-
nation with the ‘TV Typewriter'
(ElekTerminal & AC 1 1 Keyboard),
a blockbuster project published
in December 1978. I now won-
der how many readers used the
TV Typewriter to program micro-
controller systems not using the
SC/MP but, for example the
pricier but eventually far more
popular 6800?

The photograph shows what I
believe to be a system built
around an original SC/MP
development beard supplied io
Elektor by Notional Semiconduc-
tor, The system looks specially
designed to read and write cas-
sette tapes and is possibly the
Master Tape generator far Elek-
tor's Software Service (ESS) who
at the time supplied SC/MP soft-
ware on 45 rpm vinyl records.
Anyone got copies of ESS 001
and 002?

Retro nics b Q monthly column cover-
ing vintage electronics including eg’
endary E'ektar designs. ConSrihu-
Hons, suggeslions and requests are
.'.■deemed; pease send an email to
ed i ?e k t a electron :cs . c a .u k ,

subject: Retronics EE.

"i 2005 - diktat cbriTGTiiQ

77

Martin Oh smarm is a Professor of
Electrical Engineering and information
Technology at FH Aachen and a long-
time contributor to Elektor Electronics.
Through Gufzz away he aims of
stimulating thought, speculation ,
construction and simulation as well os
raise interesting questions.

This month we lack at an everyday Hem: the
hum h!e coin, be It a 2-pound, or a 1- or 2-suro
piece. Money, including coins, seems to have
o strong attracting erfeci on people. Bui how
do the above coins behave within a magnetic
T'e'd? Will they be a ti reefed or reps’ ed? To rind
out we suspend a coin freely in front of an elec-
tromagne; (photograph!. Next, we pump c
strong current of 8 to 10 A rms through the coil.
First we apply an alternating current of 50 Hz
and then we repeat the experiment using a fre-
quency of 20 kHz.

This month's question is:

Is ihe coin attracted or repelled?

Hints

Ihe two pound coin and the I- and 2-mo pieces contain
nkkel/bcQss and copper/nkkel alloys
limvprideamaLcam/dicfmufyhtml You con use either
of these three coins. Ihe coil consists of on Epcos coil far-
mer type P36x22 with 50 turns of 90x0. i Cut RFtiti wire.
The coil former sits on a ferrite cote half type FID
44/22/15. Ihe inductance of the coil is about 240 mH. In
order to obtain an effective current of 8 A through the coil
you'll need about 240 volts — on extremely dangerous
undertaking os the reactive pom amounts to about 2 kilo -
iraffc.

Editor's notei all relevant electrical safety precau-
tions should be observed and the nature of the
above experiment moires it definitely unsuitable for
any place other than a professionally equipped lab-
oratory ,

Ihe question may be answered by simple reasoning —
complex moths should not he necessary For a lab experi-
ment,, find someone with experience in the design of heavy

Quizz'away

mad warn!

Send in the best answer to this month's
Quizz 'away question and win an

Elektor

Flash Micro Board Starter Kit

(05 0208-91)

worth £69 .The kit contains the ready-
assembled and tested board with con-
necting cable and software an CD-ROM
(see www . e I ekta r-e ! ectra n Ics . co . u k)

A answers arc processes b) Martin Ohs-
mann in co-operation with ci skier editorial
staff. Results ore nor open to discussion or
correspondence and a lucky winner Is
drawn in cose of several correct answers.

h one-euro coin freely suspended in (rent of on
electromagnet

power supplies. It w 50 Hi current maybe obtained from
o toroidal transformer on which a suitable secondary is
wound Other wil arrangements are oho possible as long as
the quality factor is high enough ot 20 kHz to ensure the
forge current flow. At 20 kHz . o high current con be
obtained from o full bridge equipped 'with good MQSFEfs
(R m}i Q.Ox ohm) powered by a 12-20 WC supply and
controlled ( via the gates) by a 20-kHz square wove. Ihe
wil is connected to the bridge via a series capacitor dimen-
sioned for resonance ot about 20 kHz together with the cat
Os sure to use a premium-quality MP capacitor rated for at
least 600 V and capable of passing 20 A ot about 200 V
(these parts are found in SMPSUs) Ihe square wave fre-
quency is adjusted for resonance to occur and oil being well
the coil mil pass the required 8 omps or so.

Please send your answer
to this month's Quizz’away problem,
by email, rax or letter to:
Quixi'away, Elektor Elect rentes,

PO Box 190,

Tunbridge Wells TN5 7VJY f England.
Fax ( + 44) (0)1580 200616.

Email: edilobielektor-efectron ics.cQ.uk,
subject: 'quizzaway 4 - 05 '.

The closing date is
29 April 2005

(solution published in May 2005 issue).
The outcome of the quiz is final.

The quiz Is not open to employees of
Segment b.v., its business partners and/or
associated publishing houses.

78

editor tlttticnitt - 4 '5 l 55

As of the September 2004 issue Quizz'away is a regular
feature in Elektor Electronics.

The problems to solve are supplied by

Professor Martin Ohsmann of Aachen Technical University.

ary 2005 p

em

(p* 78; Lamp Intensity)

The equivalent circuit is shown again in
Figure I , Normally you would expect
the current through Rl to rise when $1 is
closed. After all, o parallel network
(R2//C) has a smaller resistance than the
individual parts., and the voltage source
then has to supply more power.

However, with the component values
shown (Ri - TOO 0, R2 = 200 A, Z c =
~/2G0 Qj the amount or current through
Rl is not affected by SI being open or
closed hence the Samp brightness is
unchanged. This only applies if the
capacitor value equals

2jt/a 2RjR 2

where f is the operating frequency. The
function of the capacitor may be token
over by a coil as long as it has the some
[absolute) impedance at f.

In addition, the power dissipated in R 1
with the switch closed can be made to
equal that in R2 simply by selecting R2 =
2R1 and thot is the case in our circuit.
The operation of the circuit may also be
explained with the aid of vectors and AC
theory (Figure 2).

When switch Si is open, the total imped-
ance Zq of series network Rl and C is
easily calculated as

Z Q - Rl +Z C - (1-2/1 _ 100 O

In the right-hand part or Figure 2 (imped-
ance area), this calculation can be veri-
fied. A slightly more complex situation
arises when the switch is closed, because
we are then looking at a parallel and a
series circuit. For the parallel value it is
easiest to determine the conduction (Y p ;
left-hand part of Figure 2) because it is the
sum of the conduction in the two
branches. Summing is done with vectors,
but this time in the conduction area (left-
hand part of Figure 2). The conduction of
R2 and C have the same absolute value
but are at 90 degrees in the complex
area. Figure 2 also shows thot adding
these two vectors results In the conduction
increasing by □ factor of x2 ar a phase
angle of 45 degrees. That conduction
equals an impedance of 200 Q/ x2 at a
phase angle of -45 degrees. Entering it
into the right-hand part of Figure 2 and by
vector-adding the value of R 1 r we not only
find the total impedance Z c but also that
and Z z are at the same distance from
the origin, namely on a circle with a
radius Z = 100 A / ' S. In other words
the circuit has an impedance that's not
affected by operating switch 5!

The explanation of this 'AC paradox'’ Is
found in the foci that the value of current I-
remoins unchanged when the switch is
operated, although the phase angles does
change. With the switch dosed, more
power is taken from the source and dissi-
pated in R2. By contrast, Rl dissipates the

1

h Rl H R2

&4K72 -7-i4

same amount or power irrespective of the
switch position. In the impedance area we
can also see that R2 carries a current H
that's .2 times smaller than the total cur-
rent i] flowing through the parallel circuit.
Since R2 is two times the value of Rl the
formula P = !- R dictates that the power
dissipation in the two resistors is equal.

Moral ©f the story:

"Watch that phase angle"

2

Double Sided, 1.6 mm,
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High-End Power Amp

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RFID Detector for 13.56 MHz

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ATX Power Supply Tester

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12G Home Bus

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No. 330 MARCH 2004

Build Your Own DRM Receiver

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Digital Alarm Clock

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P r e nislon Measurement! Central

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Rev Counter for R C Models

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sneak preview

27(C)512 Emulator

Despite the inroads of Flash technology, lots of microcon-
jroiler applications dill employ on EPROM for program stor-
age. The reasons are probably best summarized in two
words: J cosf and 'tradition'* The downside of an EPROM is
the need for an emulator when it comes to debugging. Our
emulator is based an a combination of an FPGA and an
AT9QS3515 controller. Far connectivity ii offers 5PI, JTAG
and R5232 interfaces.

U5B-GPS

This article describes on interface between navigation
application; and a miniature GPS module coupled to
an equally smalt active antenna. The modular struc-
ture of the project allows you to use selected parts for

your own applications.

Theme Plan for 2005

January . „ . , Power Supplies
February * * . .Wireless
March ..... .Sound
April ...... .Microcontrollers

May Sensors

June .Environment

July/ August . .Summer Circuits
September * . Jest & Measurement
October „ . . i . Security
November . . .CAD Software
December . , .Opioelectronics

Serial Bus Systems

Two in-depth ariiclss will deal with the variety of systems available fo route
signals in and between equipment while using os few Vires' as passible.
Protocols and specifications are describes as well as guidance far designers.

Also.,,

The Digital Future: PetCheck; Lap Gaunter; Delphi for
Electronic Engineers (5); Magnetic Flux Meter; Theremin;
NMRA Model Train Programmer; eZ8G Acclaim!

RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! ifeltey SMS m§ § pp srfs m Sotordsy 13 April 20 05 1 UK rfitfrilKJifcn idy).

UK subscribers wilt receive ihe rnogmfae a few days before this dote. Article titles and magazine conferil i st/bject to change.

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cd-rom Audio Collection 2 z 12.05

Micro Web Server:

MSG 1210 board £ ag.oo

Network extension £ 41,95

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Fiash Microcontroller Starter Kit £ e&.oo

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Order now using the Order Form in
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Elektor Electronics (Publishing)

RO. Bax 190

Tunbridge Wells TN5 7WY
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Telephone +44 (0) 1580 200 657
Fax +44(0)1580 200 616

Ema i I : saies@ele ktor-electronics.co

C D- R O (M3 ;

More information on www.elektor-electronics.co.uk

Elektor 2004

This CD-ROM contains all
editorial articles, with the
exception of New Pro-
ducts items, published in
Elektor Electronics maga-
zine Volume 2004. Using
ihe supplied Acrobat
Reader program, articles
are presented in the same layout as originally
round in ihe magazine. The DiskMirror utility on
this CD-ROM allows your earlier Elektor year
volume CD-ROMs (1997-2003} to be added to
a large archive on hard disk for fast access and
easy reference. A built-in search function allows
you to find references in any article from the
archive on hard disk, or from individual year
volume CD-ROMs you have available.

£16,25 (USS 28,75)

Gameboy Digital Sampling
Oscilloscope

a brilliant design

The GBDSO Is a plug-in module that turns the
popular Nintendo Gameboy Classic. Pocket.
Colour or Advanced into a versatile dual-channel
oscilloscope. An optional link to a PC even allows
measured oscillograms to he viewed or stored
on the PC.

The GBDSO rocked the electronics hobby world
and that's why we conti nue one ring ready-built
GBDSO modules (including ihe associated PC
software and the magazine articles).

£103.00 (USS 183.00)

Audio Collection 2

A unique CD-ROM for
the true audio lover,
containing no fewer than 75
audio designs from the past
five year volumes of elektor
eiecironics magazine.

The articles on the CD-ROM
cover rest & measurement equip-
ment. amplifiers, digital audio
and loudspeaker technology.

Highlights include the Crescendo Millennium
Edition, Audio-DAC 2000, Audlo-
and the IR-S PDIF Transmitter and Receiver.
Using the included Acrobat Reader you are
able to browse the articles on your computer,

| as well as print texts, circuit diagrams
and RGB layouts. £12,05 (USS 21,25)

ECD

Elektor's Components
Database gives you easy
access to design data for
over 5.700 ICs. more than
35,000 transistors, FETs,
thyristors and triacs, just
under 25.000 diodes and
1.800 optocouplers. All data-
bank applications are fully
interactive, allowing the user to add, edit and
complete component data. £12,95 (USS 22.90)

Micro Web Server for Internet and Intranet

control and regulation via the Internet

Remote measurement and control is possible via the Internet.
Unfortunately, webservers usually sii in large, humming grey cabinets.
That's not the ideal solution for keeping an eye on your refrigerator,
coffee machine or central heating system. The Elektor Electronics Micro
Web Server provides an alternative. Our incredibly popular MSC1210
microcontroller board (also known as 'Precision Measurement Centraii
now provides network and Internet connectivity, allowing the processor to
publish iis own data pages onto the web. The article describes a tempera-
ture logger allowing the user to enter, via the Internet, temperature [imiis
and an email alarm address. The Micro Web Server can also switch net-
work ports from an Internet-connected PC. literally anywhere on the globe.

Now available:

* MSC12 10 board (assembled and iested) £69.00 (USS1 12.50)

* Network extension (assembled and tested) £41.95 (USS73.95)

■ Combined package (inch software and all

related Elektor Electronics articles on CD-ROM } £103.50 (USS 184.95)

\ fY

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5zl

Layout

Tm

* t

S/l*

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*

Powerful & flexible schematic capture.

Auto-component placement and rip-up/retry PCB routing
Polygonal gridless ground planes.

Libraries of over 8000 schematic and 1000 PCB parts.
Bill of materials, DRC reports and much more.

Textual library part search.
User defined keyboard map
CADCAM output to ZIP file.

Mixed Mode SPICE Circuit Simulation

• Berkeley SP1CE3F5 simulator with custom extensions for
true mixed mode and Interactive simulation.

• 6 virtual instruments and 14 graph based analysis types.

0 6000 models including TTL, CMOS and PLD digital parts.
0 Fully compatible with manufacturers' SPICE models.

• Bitmap import function.

• Truetype fonts on PCBg,

• Enhanced printer output.

Call Now for Upgrade Pricing

wwwJuhcenter, co, uk
info@lnbcent@r* co. uk

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Supports PIC, AVR, 8051, and BASIC STAMP micro-controllers.
Co-simulate target firmware with your hardware design.

Includes interactive peripheral models for LED and LCD displays,
switches, keypads, virtual terminal and much, much more.
Compatible with popular compilers and assemblers from
Microchip, Crownhill, 1AR, Keil, and others.

r i

Proteus VSM - Co-simulation

controllers