WLF ADD-ON UNIT FOR OSCILLOSCOPES Digital sine-wave generator In-car ioniserPublaner: CR, Chandarana Editor: Surendra ier Editorial Assistance: Ashok Donare Gnerai Manager: Dhas ‘Advertising: 8M. Mens ‘across ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS PvT LTD. | 52, € Proctor Road | Bombay - 400 007 INDIA Telex: (011) 76661 ELEK IN Overseas editions: e Electronics ntact House Bath Pace igh Steet, Barnet Herts ENS 5XE UK, Eaitor: Len Seymour Publiron Pubcacoes Tecricas Lida ‘Av ipianga 1100, 9° andar CEP‘DIOK0 Seo Paulo ~ Braz Editor: Juliano Bersalt | Etextor sor Route National; Le Seau; B.P. 53 | £59290 Baile! ~ France Editors: D RS Moyo GCP Racdersdort | ektor Variag GmbH | Surtees Site 25 | 100 Aachen West Germany Esitor: £ A Krempelsaver lektor EPE Ketek 14 E273 Voula — Athens — Greece Editor: & Xanthovie Elektr BV, Pater Teckpoesisat 2-4 G31 VA Beek — the Netheriands Editor: P EL Kereemakers Fevers & Bento Lia RO. Eatin. 221° 1000 Lisboa — Portugal Editor: Joige Goncalves Ingoek 5.8, ‘Aw Alfonso Xi, 14 Made 18 — Spain Editor: A Mt Fever tn part Kedhomn Holdings PTY Lid Chr ox Vatoy Rood & iogie Steet Wiahroonga NSW 2078 — Austata Editor: Roger Harrison Esctronc Press AG Box 62 182 11 Darderyd ~ Sweden Editor: Bill Cedrum or dome vas on Pau prewcon may it nee ot escorting Sly ach ‘Tropt Ost Bombay 400 019 Copyright © 1987 Eloktuur 8.V. The Nathorlands Electronics Technology Its master’s voice The razor edge of the excimer laser Field-effect optocoupler Projects Digital sine-wave generator VLF add-on unit for oscilloscopes ....... ROM/RAM card for Electron plus One Software for the BBC computer-3 Micro-squeaker Battery saver .. MSX extensions - 4 sass The Junior Computer as a frequency counter .. In car ioniser Information News @ News @ News © 1 Computer facts New products .. Juni Infosheet . 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Volume-5 Number-3 March-1987 3.19 3.25 3.37 sia 312T 3.27 + 3.32 + 3.35 +. 3.36 +. 3.39 3.40 saves 3.45 3.47 3.16 3.45 . 3.58 3.67 3.70 | | 3.63 3.74 3.74 3.74 3.50 3.52 3.54 3.56 ster nda march 1987 3-03,Introducing THE MEMBRANE KEYBOARD GHaa8 Geaeag aon o GB8B TT shel bebe CONSTRUCTION OF OUR MEMBRANE KEYBOARDS. ‘Membrane Keyboards offerAVAILABLE EX STOCK — e¢ COMPUTER PERIPHERALS & MEDIA PRODUCTS e RANGE OF GODREJ PRINTERS & y — ——somnat EPSON DOT MATRIX PRINTERS ¢ t e PHILIPS FLOPPY DRIVES e RANGE OF SMPS CONNECTORS KEY BOARDS FOR PC-XT & AT a= Ci e SET OF CARDS FOR PC/XT & AT MONITORS-MONOCHROME & COLOUR e RANGE OF PRINTER RIBBONS e RANGE OF FLOPPY DISKETTES (IMPORTED) | ¢ CABINETS FOR PC/XT & AT GENERAL ELECTRONIC ITEMS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE WITH US | | MAINTENANCE/ REPAIRS OF ae SMPS/DPM/DMM UNDERTAKEN | ABC ELECTRONICS 338/65 RAJESH BUILDING, 1ST FLOOR, OFP. 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With Dynalog on your sid is impossible. Dynalog offers the widest range of Microproc r and Development Systems, based on all popular Microproces 085, 280, 6802, 6502, 8086, 8088 and 68000. The range also includes 8085 based system specially designed for learning Process Control App! s. Various building block type STD Bus compatible cards for O tions are also available from Dynalog. ni Dynalog Micro-Systems 14, Hanuman Terrace, Tara Temple Lane, Lamington Road, Bombay 400 007 Tel: 362421 3029 Telex: 011-71801 DYNA IN Gram: ELMADEVICE, sn1s07 3-15,Its master’s voice and Newman (BBN), which has | which produced the fit com a contract from the American | purer with an elementary built Defence Department to | in develop speech-ecognition | Cherry Electzical, 2 Chicago technology, compares it with | Keyboard maker, has bought trying to read handwritin for $200 a unit for which not only are all words L000«word recog: People do not leave gaps be- | its speech- Dragon dictates tween words in speech as they pai yan ck: | Reon aeeedons we Itis quicker to read a book than | note that the gaps cor cessors. Once microcomputers | what it calls a “tigram” ap- ‘0 write it, In an ideal world, | None the therefore, busy businessmen | rival of customized chips ai would receive information on | distcheap computing power, paper and impart it in speech. | is now possible to build a de- | For once, IBM is among the | have to know 20,000 words. But they do not, because the | vice that can hear each of | leaders of the race thanks toa | Kurzweil disagrees, The spoken and wnitten word re- | thousands of words correctly | talented team under Dr Fred | vocabulary of main separate. The deor be- | and within half a second im | Jelinck at the company’s | English speaker is surpnsinaly tween them is guarded by the | more than 95% of cases, Ven Watson Research | small. Shakespeare used about formidable power of the typing | ture capitalists have got wind of | Gentze at Yorltown Heights in | 30,000 words in all his wi ool this. Companies are springing | New York State. In 1964, it | but most people are much less Not many years from now. those | up throughout the high-ech | demonstrated a 5000word de- | prolific. Mr Robin Kinkead | typists will have been replaced | belts of America to build "com | vice that required a mainframe | director of design at Kurewell | by machines. There are already | puter ears’. For now, do not be- | computer and three array pro- | found that he had used 8000 dovices on the market that fac- | lieve their claims: a good audio | cessors, In Aprillast year, itdid | diferent words in al his writin tory managers can use to re- | typist can beat the pants off any | the same on a personal com- | during two years (113,000 wo: cord stocks or orders, or that | machine yet devised. But bad | putor, by using two chips ealled | in total) and only 4,000 of those carselephonists can use to dial | ones will soon feel the cold signal processors | were used more than once, IBM. sumbers by voice. breath of mechanical com- joped at IBM's laboratories | has searched 27m words of of: Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, | petition witzerland and France fice correspondence to glean a small compary based in | At least three companies are Jelinek now says he has | the 20,000 words most common Waltham, Massachusetts, and | close to market. Kurzweil will ven further and given a | ly employed for its Tangora founded by Dr Ray Kurzweil, | probably be the first. Its vocabillary of 20,000 | Those 20,000 account for 98% of has taken this idea a stage | 10,000-word voice wniter will IBM calls the speech | the total further and has sold 400 of what | sell for under $10,000 when itis ser Tangora, after | © Connected speech. All three stalls “voice systems” A voice | eventually launched (sometime Tangora, the world’s | machines require each word to ss, thanks to the ar- | able, Dragon hopes to have | third. 000-word recognising tech- | Most researchers reckon a nology availabl good dictation machine would system can learn how an in- | in the first half ofthis year is the ist [thas net yet said | be spoken in isolation irom its dividual speaks 000 words | latest of several guesses). It will | whe! will be selling | neighbours. This greatly, and then turn ary word it hears | come with a basic vocabulary | Tangoras, Dr Jelinek plans to | facilitates recognition, but itis into the same set of signals as a | of 6.500 words that will need a | distribute a few dozen to offices | inconvenient, slow and is plain Keyboard would deliver to a | few hows’ training to each | in IBM research laboratories | ly not how the human mind personal computer. | user's voice and will be able to fr evaluation, works. However, even with So, for example, Dr Alan Rob- | add new words that you teach it | gaps between words, it should ‘hins, a radiologist at the New | up toa total of 10,000 or so, Kurz: | England Baptist Hospital, has | weil has invented its own chip, given a voice system the basic | the KCS2408, for the voice vocabulary of Kays, so that he | writer, which will be a box that can dictate to it while describ | goes between the microphone ing the results of an Xay. Doc- | and an IBM-PC-AT personal tors would benefit greatly from dictation machines: most of | be possible to dictate to Kurz 0 or at a rate of 5 most pro- : fessionals type, though well limit the problem in four ways: | short of My Tangoras 117 words «Vocabulary. A large vocabu- | a minute Systems, a small | lary ade manageable | Isolated speech may tum ont to gon and IBM all the only way to their communication is in the | company based in Newton, | by teaching a machine elemen: thnological dead-end form of handwriten notes to | Massachusetts, is taking a dif | tary grammar For example, | Dr Kurzweil does not think £0 each other, one study found | ferent approach. tis main con- | sentencesare moze likely tobe- | He says his voice writer will be that 16% of the words in such | cer is to get the cost right | gin with “man” than ‘than’ Dr. | able to handle connected notes were illegible down so that $50 voice engines | Susumu Kuno, a Harvard pro- | speech by 1988. IBM's Dr To build a dictation machine | with 60 cent microphones can | fessor, whose skills of syntax | Jelinek reckons it wil require a that can distinguish between | be fitled to any desktop | are incorporated into Kurzweil’ | tenfold increase in computing the thousands of words that | microcomputer. In 1983, its | voice writer, divides speech | power. But BBN's Dr Makhoul people use in writing to each | founders, Dr Jim and Dr Janet | ino about 400 kinds of words | says that you cannot tackle con: ‘other, and yet not confuse any | Baker, licensed their teci-| and defines which kinds of | nected speech without sacrific two of them, is much harder. Dr | nology for $10 a unit to Apricot, | words follow which in an| ing performance on other John Makhou! of Bolt Beranek ! a British computer maker, | English sentence. IBM uses | counts. ase ate nven 1002.3-19# Speaker dependence To be good, speech recognisers will have to be trained to an in- dividuals voice. Where the ability to recognise any voice is required (eg. dialling tole- phone numbers), either vo- ccabulary will have to be limited or errors tolerated. Training the machine to your voice will be tedious: once the vocabulary gets much above is, itis impractical to their dogs, as “animal in the ‘somebody at the door” let me out”, It worked | | The machines described in this article mark only the begin ning. By the end of the century, they will be as obsolete as typewnters, Some of the speech-recognition projects especially those paid for by defence departments to help fighter pilots do a dozen things vwant to see a keyboard Administratio product to market. It eschews cabulary. words, move around the s led by a voice system. It is still vestricted to a smi Background noice. Given @ and sign off with spoken com Speakers of Japanese and vocabulary and itiakos mi noice in the bac Riley ohsete reel works. To watch st gradually puter will make a better | stat now veheeeaken oo making up its mind about what cb of recognising each word | Sq alivrgh the Kurewell vice | they stuggle to design | YOU said (and puadling over than over a eley, long. disice ‘|/eruar Wiltaore win eareaas | kertoesde taal cer cuanage | JoHe Ei acct) oa telephone line with it 82% processing prosram, it ca mary thousands of characters, An oven more futuristic idea is row range of frequencies and entcely controlled by speech. | NEC already makes a S00word eet Mr John Bridle and Dr crackles. Again, each designer “Listento-me” wakes the com- recogniser and Fujitsu a Roger Moore at one of Britain's as 10 choose whether to sacri- puter up, "moveright” moves | 2560vord one. defence research laboratories, ice performance for robust: the cursor right, "newe-choice” | Such machines need not con- the Royal Signals and Radar ness, or vice versa conects a wrongly heard word | fine their recognition to words, | Establishment in’ Malvern, by telling the computer to | Kuraweil discovered that one of | Worcestershire. They want to substitute its seconc-best | the customers who bought its | "¥ speech recognition on a Look, no hands guess. Connected words are | voice system was using it to | NeW generation of computers | Nobody knows quite what the | used in such commands and | identify the sound of faulty | called either “Boltzmann | implications of computers | isolated ones in dictation bearings in machinery, In a Machines” or perceptions. taking dictation will be. One of | Kurzweil reckons tha playful mood, some of Kurz | These are networks of micro Kureweil’s best ideas has been | market for the voice writer will | weils scientist taught the | Processors built to imitate to send Mr Kinkead to find out | be lawyers, doctors and middle | machine to distinguish three Primutive brains what people want from such a | managers, who generate a lot of different Kinds of bark by one of [ Anatomy of a computer's ear ] Inthe 1860s, most researchers assumed that speech recognition was simply a matter of distinguishing the “shape” of each “phoneme” Gyllable or consonant group) and translating that into words. But that approach has proved tntewarding, because it underestimates | the variability and ambiguity of speech. Compare "this newr display can recognise speech” with “this nudist play can wreck a nice Deaeh! ‘Today a diferent mood prevails. IBM's Dr Jlinek jokes that his system improves every time he gets rid ofan “exper”: What he means tha, given lots of eata computers are better at dedicing what to measize soas to distinguish words than humans ae, Atits simplest, vis means measuring the saistical similarity between a siored template (of a word usually) and the sound that has been heard. But itis never as easy as tat. For a start, words Yary in length according te the speed at which they are spoken and according to their context. They have to be “time-warped” to ast But it does not help 0 ime-warp them by a set amount. Say the word tree” slowly and itis the ee that gets length The answer is dynamic time-warping, a mathematical trick that matches lwo spectrograms of uneven length. | | Burifyeu ty tard enough, yoo etn dynamically time-warp one wor nto almost any ake. The imesearping ha 0 bo consained | ‘The clevezes: way of doing this leads toa whole new appreach to speech recognition, Called “hidden Markor modelling” after a Rus- | sian mathematician who analysed "Eugene Onegin it was first applied o speech recoamition by Dr Jim Baker, now the chief executive siicer of Dragon. It gets away from the idea of compas word templates. comparing instead tiny fragments of speech with stored pattem, and, in particular, the probability that one fraqment will be preceded and followed by another. Itis "hidden’, because the | nswer ft gives for each sound is itself statistical and based on the computer's own ability to learn from examples. | The stalstcal epproach stumbles over short words, no: long ones, which include mote distinctive features. “Disestablishmen- | | Tho cia tore SOT Toad Pas whee te nein res come heres ea moo ikly pias | it America” But “if America” and “is America” ate both plausible. No single approach, acoustic or linguistic, is as qood as their com bined efforts, What Kuraweil’s scientists have done is o use soven pieces of software (which they call “experts”) 0 atack each word and then vote on the answer ei ate pe Bice ag ‘Reproduced with permission from The EconomistDIGITAL SINE-WAVE GENERATOR This simple to build AF generator can output a digitally obtained sinusoidal output signal in the 2 Hz to 20 kHz range. crating a sine-wave signal in the | waveform obtained from an | ensure a sufficiently low gener- | two MMVs ensures a stable out | AF range, and numerous de- | EPROM, is. a digital storage | put clock signal over the entire signs to this effect have already | medium, The data stored in the been published in this maga | EPROM (Erasable Program: zine. However where the main | mable Read Only Memory) is | concerns of the user include a | the template, so to speak, for hhigh degree of output level | the ourput waveform. As shorn stability, low distortion and | in Fig.l, a clock generator, reliable coverage of the full AF | three dividers, and a cyclic ad- | monostab' rmultvibrators | 128 kHz...128 kHz (1Coe; Sie-3) spectrum, quite a number of | dress counter cause the data | MMV: and MMV: , Frequency | and 128kH2.....28 MHz (MMV basic designs fall short of the | bytesin the EPROM to be fed to | range switch Si selects the ap- | MMVs;S-4). As each period of necessary performance in propriate output from divider | the output sine-wave is gener 'ese and other important re- | (DAC), whose output signal is | chain ICo1C: Puis used | ated in 64 steps, the generator «put impedance. 128 klfs to 128 MHz range. The oscillator and the divider chain can supply the following fe- | ference to the circuit | quency ranges tunable | 128 Hz...1280H2 (Cx; SirD, | composed of | 1280K2..128kHe (C;8i-2), | Circuit description With diagram, ‘There are various ways of gen: | article outputs a sinusoidal | amplifier has been included to | The oscillator circuit with the | | | specs yaned with the aid of a track adjustment for the | has an output frequency range ‘The generator described inthis | ing fiter, An output | generator output of 2 He to 20 kHz, EE Rees e a _ | The clock pulses at the pole of a Sis are inverted with the aid of || Mosret 1, to ensi: rect phase relation berween B® || and Ics, a Type 4040 bin: * — stot vwonys F-} ave | >) ian counter, which drives the ad- dress input lines Ao... Rs of the EPROM containing the di pattern for one [ fom the 8192 bytes available in rao the Type 2764 EPROM are used l 6 Ap... si : a admittedly, | ier a waste of memory ca Fig. 1 Block diagram of the digital sine wave generator. The cutt-olf frequency of the low-pass output filter is switched along with the frequency range setting pacity, but it must not be forgot wer 3-21Fig. 2 Circuit diagram of the digital sine-wav ively output bytes represents a instantaneous voltace of the output sine-wave. Table | shows the contents of the EPROM Assuming that ICs has not yet reached output state 32, its Qs ‘oirtput is low, and the Q output ‘of FF; drives DAC databit Ds high. Therefore, the first 32 hexadecimal values to be con: verted by the DAC are 108.119, 182,..119. Then, FF) toggles, and Ds of the DAC is driven low, ‘Output Qs of cyclic counter IG» | causing the next 32 steps to be goes high alter every 32nd | OFF, @E7...0CE, #E7, Thus, the pulse transition at the CLK in- positive half period of the sine- ten that, in general, EPROMs in the 27XXX series offer shorter access times as their holding | capacity increases. The Type | 2164 is now widely available, | and its price has come down to the level of a 450 ns type 2722 ‘The majority of manufacturers of the 2784 specify a device ac- cess time of the order of 250 ns, being the maximum permiss- ible value for the EPROM used in this circuit put, This event causes bistable | wave is written with counter FF; to toggle and drive data in- | states @..32 (De=)), the nega utDs of DAC ICs low. Latch IC? | tive half period with counter fs inserted between the daia states 33...64 (Ds=0). With 6 ‘outputs of the EPROM and the ata inputs of the DAC to ensure that gitch-fee logic levels are | transfered during. the rising edge of a clock pulse. | As counter ICs addresses all | | 64 memory locations in the EPROM, each of the success Bots aia g cays memory locations, Sit conver- sion values are available for the ents. of (60°64). The attainable resolution for the steps is Unit ' ofthe DAC is ed toa variable-R, Fig. 3 Suggestion for a simple power supply. Noto that a 5 V regulator is fitted on the generator board. 20a oon ato oie B20 28 e350 20 ce ea Fe ac or ae 19 és re aS e? 5a en se 32 ba ee 26 aa er oc 86 ez eS Se a ae 708 Fa er aA ee ac Te a6 ge FA oa 32 32 es 26 Ge az re cs 19 Se eo Se e7 Table 1. Hexadecims Ic representation of the contents of EPROM.| fixed-C lowpass fter, whose | cutoff frequency is arranged to | wack along with the generator output frequency. The filter is required te smooth the stair case intoa sine-wave, and at the same time to suppress harmon. xes and spurious DAC output signals. The simple RC titer of fers a skin steepness of about 6 dBloctave, which is adequate, as the first strong spurious signal has a frequency 64 times that ofthe fundamental note. ‘The output amplifier ofthe sine- wave generator is based around IGw , ICs, Tsand Ts. The later two are mediumpower tar sistors ina balanced power out put stage capable of driving relatively low-impedance loads Zou ~ 80.9), The ourput ampli {ude ofthe generator ean be ad justed wath Pe The generator board comprises is own 5 Vregulator. Therefore, a simple, symmetrical 8V supply sullices io feed the instramentFig, 3 shows a sta dard design to accomplish this, LED Di on the generator board is used asthe power on/off ind cator Construction ‘The sine-wave generator is con ructed on ready-made PCB ype 87001, With Fig. 4 and the pars list to hand, no construc: tional problems are envisaged. ‘The frequency and amplitude controls are fitted straight onto the board to enable this to be mounted vertically, behind the enclosure front panel. Make sure that you use good quality presets in the P: and P: pos- itions, else the stability of the generator output signal will be affected. Power semiconduc tors , Teand [Cs can do with. out heatsinks, but due account should be taken of the potential heir metal mounting tabs ne spindles of, Ps and P: are lef long enough to protn rough the instru ‘The output of the ger As to the power supply, this is con PCB Type 9 The regulator Pants list supply boot Fi | CrCe=anoy: 36 V ni | decry Ce 1000 ¢ ye 25 V tanta Senicondters o ic Os in! 708 708 1a | | scellancous F100 | te-2 | Scout Cleave action fue aC es or F Soldenng ins a requ PB Type S058 The fiting of the socket, the fuseholde: mains transformer, Tr, is, straightforward, requiring further detailing. Observe rating of S: to make sure it can be used as 2 mains switch, and be careful to keep the two ‘mains wires running to the front panel well away from the gener ator board. Play it safe! Setting up and filter considerations ‘To begin with, the +8 V supply is separately tested by measur | ing its open-circuit output v age. Connect the completed tgenerator board, switch on see if the LED lights. The pre cise adjustment of the D-A con verter can be carried 0 temporarily replacing Rv: with a 5KO multiturn preset, and com necting a digital ammeter be tween pin I6 of [Cy and the proset, Make sure preset has previously been se: ral Fig. 5 Track layout and component mounting plan for the BV symmetrical power supply. to about the centre of is travel, and adjust it for a current of 2.000 mA. Remove it, measure its resistance, and fit an ap: propriate highstability resistor 1m the Rie position. While you have the board lying in front of you to perform this test, it is a {good idea to check the measur- ing points indicated in the cir: cuit diagram. Should you want to use the ger erator to provide only one, fixed, output frequency—eg. for distortion measurements, itis certainly worth while to re- place the PrCs...Cra filter with a higher order type to attain an output distortion of about 0.01%. It is readily seen that such @ filter is considerably more com: plex, and also mote difficult to track with the generator output | frequency, than the proposed single RC combinations, and that is why it was left cut of the present design. Itis possible to store waveforms other than a pure sine-wave in the EPROM, Do not forget, how: ever, that the simple R-C low | pass will cause distortion of sharp points of inflection pres cent in, for instance, ramps and twiangular waveforms, For these applications, a very complex DAC output filter is required, making the digital approach to signal generation cumbersome as compared with conventional analogie techniques & Fig. 6 The fro ancl fa ot the digital sine-wave generator.THE RAZOR EDGE OF THE EXCIMER LASER by Dr Malcolm C. Gower, Laser Division, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton near Oxford Excimer lasers produce extremely intense bursts of ultraviolet light. Their ability to do so is generating a great deal of interest in areas as diverse as chemical synthesis, defence, surgery, and semiconductor processing and chip manufacturing. The shor | wavelength photons they produce have enough energy to break most of the chemical bonds that bind molecules together, This ability to control the chemical siate of matter and change it in a desirable and very selective way is at the heart of many of the most exciting applications ‘of excimer lasers. thereby fragmenting or stimulating them to change their form. | | The most common type of | emitting ultraviolet photons, excimer laser uses molecularly | rare-gas halide molecules can. diatomic mre-gas halides such | not be bought in a bottle bu as Ark, KrF, XeF or KeCl as the | must be created in the lase: species from which the | vessel zm sia. Itis usually done laser light is produced (see | by high-voltage electrical Spectrum 16). tn their com- | discharges in gas mixtures of mon, unexcited form, atoms of | halogen-bearing mole the rare gases Ne, Ar, Krand Xe | and sare-gas atoms, as| tes | ari(b) | or inert and do | of the illustration. The uner- | not readily form molecules. But | cited rare-gas halide molecules if an electron is knocked off an } which form the lower laser level atom to ionise it, the atom can | are unstable, so at any instant | & become extremely reactiveand | there ate very few of them in | with negative halogen ions of the F. which tron attached to them Rare-gas halide molecules are held together by electrostatic forces, halide formed, as in the fust @. Because of thoir transient nature, | hillorths of « second before falling molecules, pariculatly | the laser vessel | Nearly all the raze-gas halide molecules in the vessel are oxcited and have energy avail able for extraction as ultraviol er photons. The wavelen of the laser light is determined by the type of molecule created and can be selected simply by changing the gas mixture orig inally added to the laser tube as shown in the table; the | pulsed energies of the light ob- | tainable fom typical commer. | cial excimer lasers are also listed. Such devices can pro: Cl, Br and I types have an additional elec- similar to the way alkali (Gal) molecules are illustration with @ lifetime of a few apart by spontaneously | "] | duce pulsed bursts of light + Wavelength Energy’ | | lasting approximately 2 x 10* (orm) __Patse (rJ}| | second at up to 800 times a sec. F 187 | | ond. Ae 193 so | iF 2991000 , er 361 353 sco | | Nuclear fusion | Kc) ae 100 || Much larger excimer lasers can ee S00 | | be Duilt in the laboratory. A KP The wavelength of light produced by an excimer loser ‘depends upon the type of ‘molecule ereated. Wt can be | selected simply by changing the gas mixture originally added tho left hand column. In the laser a the Los Alamos Natioral laboratery, USA. will soon be producing four terawatis (4 x 10" matt) of ultaviolet light This power is several times re than the combined. ca | pacity of all the electricity | generating stations inthe world | to the laser tube, a8 in right hand column are the today, but the laser can produce pulsed energies of the light | st for only about 5 x 10° of a obtainable from typical second. With the aim of eventu: commercial excimer lasers. ally building a laserdriven | 2x10 nuclear fusion power plant for the relatively cheap pollution free production of electricity, this extremely large laser is be ing dy the nuclear fu sion reactions produced when the d laser light il tum heats and com. presses to high density tiny glass microspheres containing deuterium and tritium gas To obiain more fusion energy mi the pellets than is put into it by the laser light the plasma created should last for at least .d and have a tem perature close to that on the Sun 0" degrees) that of solids. Exps t such high tempera: densities are more read by using short wavelength ultraviolet laser light o irradiate and comp he target. Because excimer can efficiently convert elect bursts of altrav (conversion effcie en demonstrated) and le do so many times 2 second, they are con- | sidered to be the most likely | dnver source for any laser. luced fusion power plant which may eventually be con structed Semiconductors ‘The ability ultraviolet mer laser light to break molecules apart so easily is now being exploited in the semiconductor industry. For e, highly uniform con ve metal coatings can be deposited on the component faces of a silicon chip by using the laser to release metal | atoms from gaseous molecules above the surface. This step in silicon chip fabrication is ¢ | chemical vapour deposition and is conventionally done by | means of plasma tech which in general are destructive to the si and less controllable than the laser technique. Thin crystalline layers of silicon can also be grown by depositing atoms of silicon. Furthermore, by si taneously locally melting silicon wafer with an excit laser, the technique can adapted to implant dopants the bulk silicon. Such i tation is used to create the p or 1 junctions which combine 10 form the miniscule circuit el in che chip jorlasor methods of plasmas tend to leave the sili 0h crystal lattice damaged, so itis essential to recrystallise (an adding another slow step to production process, high-tem perature annealing of the whole wafer can also lead to distor circuit elements on | he chips. On the other hand, | the excimer laser method of im- | | | planting can simultaneously locally anneal the silicon wafer as well as achiove very high, supersaturated concentrations (of dopant atoms. ‘There is another process, too, in producing silicon chips, that can be improved upon by the excimer laser. Extremely small, complicated circuit patterns to be fabricated on the silicon wafer are initially laid out by reproducing master mask pat tems of the circuit on a thin, ES ea Sia es| light-sensitive plastic polymer | duced by excimer lasers are in | melting and very litle heating’ | film called the photoresist, | general shorter than those pro- | of the surrounding unexposed coated on to the silicon. Ina duced by high-powered lamps, material, so. that remarkably | way similar to that in which a | smaller feature sizes on the | steep cleanvalled cuts are pro- camera works, lenses or mirrors mask can be replicated on to | duced in the crater lef behind. project an image of the it the chip This allows many | This type of clean etching also | [uminated mask on to the | more, smaller circuits to be | applies to biological tissue. The photoresist. In the exposed, | packed on to the chip, so that | possibility of performing ex bright regions of the mask pat’ | each chip can perform a | tremely clean cuts without tem the photoresist is then re- | greater number of operations at | charing and damage to su | moved by chemical develop- a areater speed. rounding tissue has aroused a ment Tonsare subsequenlly im- | Another advantage of the ex- | great deal ofimterest in medical planted into the silicon through | cimerlaseris thatthe extremely | cenles around the worl. the gapsinthe photoresist This | short burst of ultaviolet | The first study of a medical ap process of optical replication of | photons can also directly plication of excimer lasers mask patterns on to the silicon | remove (etch or ablate) the | was to do with cutting and | | wafers is known as photolith- | photoresist from the exposed | reshaping comea tissue in the ‘ography; incoherent lamp | regions without the need for | eye. Unlike light of a longer Sources illuminate the mask, wet chemical development. So wavelength, ultraviolet radiation Recently, however, ultraviolet the excimer laser source may does not pass through the cor | excimer laser light sources | mean cutting out another pro- nea layer at the front ofthe eye. rave demonsttated several | cessing step in chip pro- Inanoperation known as radial unique advantages over lamps | duction. keratotomy, pioneered in the t at | in such work. The most striking Soviet Union, a diamond knife is | advantage is that the laser can | used to make radial incisions in ||‘! vmertation produce images which are | Clean etching the comea. Because the cornea lempanbarret nearly 10° times brighter than | Ultraviolet excimer laser light 8 well as the Jens can focus | those produced by alamp. This | directly etches plastics ma- light, a change in its radius means that the exposure time of | terials by producing a micto- of curvature can lead to a the photoresist can be made | explosion though efficient, | permanent correction of de- negligibly small, allowing a rapid breaking of the chemical | fects caused by the lens, such substantial increase in the chip | bonds that hold the polymer | as shom sightedness. It has throughput of a photolth- | together. Unlike lasers working | recenlly been shown that caraphy machine. Furthermore, at longer wavolengtis, the masking techniques enable this Dbecause the wavelengths pro- | excimer laser produces no type of surgery to be done by means of an excimer laser, with | "| a quality and precision far ex | | | The successive steps photlithoaraphy, a process used in the semiconductor Industry for making hips. ceeding that achieved with a | issue. An altemative method | knife. Moreover, the laser can might be to use light from an vs | reshape the comes by ma: | excimer laser, passed down chining rings and crescent | through an optical fibre in the shapes. Tt can also make the artery, to bum through the precise incisions necessary for blockage cleanly. Initial studies subsequent comeal transplants have shown that for soft, nom ‘or removal of cataracts ealeiied plaque the excimer Jaser can remove the constic: tion efficienly and cleanly. i, Balloon angioplasty —_Calcified blockages are much | Work is also going on to in. more difficult to remove. i} é J smoot vestigate the use of the excimer | Among other medical appli- cedure known as angioplasty. precise neurosurgical cutting Blockage near the heart by ac- in the brain and spinal column. ceumtlation of plaque. the con- While most applications of, dition known as atheroscler. | high-power visible and infrared osis, eventually leads toa heart lasers use the laser merely as a fatack, Most widespread of | sophisticated cutting and | Surpiel methods now ased to | Welding torch, the most ex. | alleviate this condition is ex- | citing potential applications of tremely invasive open-heart | excimer lasers make use ofthe | HL surgery, in which surgeons | high powers which they are bypass the blockage by graf: | capable of producing and the Ung anew artery aroundit. Less | ability of the ultraviolet photons invasive isa recently developed | to induce changes in the technique called balloon angioplasty, in which a fibre is, threaded through the arteries to the blockage and a balloon on ‘chemical state of matter in a | most efficient way. Many new applications of excimer lasers may be expected to develop as. lero tnblock series are. eatioas being sticied ace very | the end is then inflated to open | scientists and engineers be- {a) Simplified energy potentit surve for KrF excimor molecule, | it out; the patient remains con- | come increasingly aware of showing energies plotted against the internuclear separation R, | scious throughout. But the tech- | their temendous potential It) The features of an oxcimer laser. nique can also damage arterial 24076a versatile chart recorder. VLF ADD-ON UNIT FOR OSCILLOSCOPES This is a low-cost storage unit enabling oscilloscope users to view signals with very long periods. Where the typical oscilloscope merely shows a slowly travelling spot in response to a VLF input signal, this add-on unit is intended fo convert that instrument into ‘The bandwidth of an oscillo scope is generally considered one of ils main. technical characteristics. For obvious reasons, the relevant specif cation is generally featured close to the oscilloscope type indication on the front panel Interesting as its bandwidth specification may be, the cor mon oscilloscope can not offer what appears to the userto be a continuously written race, atin put frequencies below some lo He The vast majority of oscillo- Scopes is totally unsuited 10 study a process with a period time of, say, one minute, Even in. the unlikely event of the instr: ment offering a timebase sot ting of 0.01 iz/div, nothing would be visible on the screen, other than an apparently station ay, bright spot, In this example a usable curve can only be ob: fained from a special chart recorder, or a storage oscillo- scope, both of which are rela y costly instruments, The VLF add-on unit described n this article considerably ex- tends the lower end of the bandwidth of any oscilloscope having a timebase setting of cifcations 500 ys/div, an external trigger | cal ger selection. ts input im- | used for applications like study. pedance must not be less than | ing the thermal behaviour of IMO. Actually, there should not | systems, analysing subsonic be too many oscilloscopes | movement, or establishing around which do not meet | these requirements! bi In essence, this oscilloscope | exam 2 suitable extension is an bit wide | (temperature-tovoltage memory block inserted be- | verter, strain gauge) tween an analogue-to-digital ‘converter (ADC) at the input, ge and discharge curves of ries. In the former two plus as; amplifier could he drive the storage unit and a digitalto-analogue con: | After the measuring process is verter (DAC) at the output. Its | completed, the user ca wide range of available time: | neat curve on the o: base settings—see the Techni | screen fo VLF storage unit Technical Characteristics BS Timebase stings: 6 s/aceo 1285 s/c 25 shana 125 e/screon; | 280 s/screen; teal exverdble wx recat opt sensvy: 200 ec Tiger output swing 5 Vir I ioput voltage range 0.2, DC coupled 8 Extral supp: BY at 100 mA IW RESET to cen semen I FREEZE button to retain ace Operates wth vituaiy any typo of exiloscope Table~ input, and a positive edge trig- | enables the storage unit to be | lloscope closer analysis. Dur ing the measurement, the ‘writing of the curve can be ob- served without a trace of dis- play ficker, as the oscilloscope 1s set to a sufficiently high dis- play mate If you are now under th pression that prese: storage unit incorporates a fair nariber of costly components | ina highly complex circuit, itis | time to proceed reading the ext section | Block diagram Fig. shows the basic operation of the circuit during altertating states of dict Un (CONVERT) and outputting the sampled data to the oseillo: scope (DISPLAY). Digitizing of Un is one on the basis o compare. The output of an &it counter, ICeICs, is translated into an analogue vo! DAC (digitalto-analogt verter), which produces output sic with Uis in IC. As fon TC: toggles, and the lastly pres cent daa from IC-IC. is writen | into the RAM location ad- | nwen 887 3-27 sventialie == ones | Fig. 1 Basic circuit operation during a convert cycle (ta and | tela cyte dressed by ICs. In this manner, the stored databyte isthe digital equivalent of the instantaneous level of Un. Note that ICs ad- dresses one RAM location only during the CONVERT mode, as its CLK input does not receive address count pulses, During the DISPLAY mode, IC: is arranged to successively ad: ress all the 256 bytes in the RAM, whose contents are fed to the DAC providing the scope with the restored analogue level of Un. ‘The cost-effective use of ICs as. a DAC and—along with the Bit ‘counter and the comparator—as ‘an ADC requires a rather par ticular circuit timing, which will be examined below. Circuit description The cixcuit diagram of the VLF storage unit, and is base inter: fal timing arrangement, are shown in Figs. 2and 3, respect wwely Fssuming the cixcut to operate in the CONVERT mode, gate _ network N-Ne disables address counter IC: from receiving 50 kH2 clock pulses from Ns The address inputs of RAM | (andom access memory) 10: are, therefore, held at a fixed | logic configuration, causing the rising, 296increment, binary | | value from counter and latch | | ICeIC; to be written to one ‘memory location only. Note that IG is a 2088-byte RAM, whose ‘memory capacity has been re stricted to 256 bytes by ground | ing its As...Ace inputs. The ‘Type 6I16 was chosen because itis much cheaper and easier to obtain than, for instance, a 5101 286x8 RAM. The Type ZN&26 Bbit DAC thus outputs the analogue equivalent of the out: put slates of IC, ie, a ramp is obtained to drive the + input of comparator IC; (see Fig. 3, curve IV), while Us is applied to the protected — input. ‘As already explained, the ‘opamp output remains low as Jong as Uss: from the DAC is lower than Un. Output Q of bistable FF: drives the WE (Write enable) input of IC: low, 0 that each binary value from counter ICr is stored and over: written again at the current ad: dress obiained from ICs. Only | that counter state from ICe that causes Use: from the DAC to be | higher than Us, is left atthe rel- 2 Fig. 2 Circuit diagram of the storage add-on unit. 8-28 rine rae 1967o = __;eauuena_jsmen_ps)_ os + tea cuput state i i a Fig. 3 Essentials of the pulse timing in the circuit, evant address, as WE goes high immediately afterwards, dis- abling the wnting of further daa in the RAM-see Fig. 3, curves IV and V. Obviously, the lower the instantaneous level of Un, the sooner IC; toggles, and the lower the value wniten into the RAM. This completes one conversion cycle. After every 256 clock pulses from Nx, Nr supplies a positive pulse transition to the clock in- ut of bistable FF2, which in response toggles to produce the trigger pulse for the oscillo- scope, thus marking the start of the display cycle. The toggling of FF: (Q=1; O=@) causes a number of things to happen simultaneously. Output Q is used to enable the output drivers in IC. to pass the binary RAM contents to the DAC input lines. As OE of ICs is driven high by Q, no contention prob: Jems can arise. Also, the low level of O is used to disable IC: by means ef convolling its STROBE input, pin 8. Bistable FF vis set to prepare for the next toggle action during a conver- sion cycle. Output Q of FF: enables Ns-Ns to pass the 50 kHz clock signal to the CLK input of address counter ICs, causing [C2 to output all data, ‘contained in its 256 memory lo- cations. Itis important to realize ‘that the first location addressed is determined by the start state of [Cx as this counter is not reset, the state of its IQA...20D outputs is simply frozen after Q of FF: goes low again. In order to be able to ‘tite to all 256 locations in ICs, an additional clock pulse is needed to enable IC: to ad ‘dress the next higher RAM lo cation where data will be stored during the CONVERT cycle. ‘This pulse is obtained from two cascaded counters in IC After the RAM contents are ‘written to the oscilloscope—ie., after 256 clock pulses from N: FE: toggles again to start a CONVERT cycle. The falling edge of Q advances counter ICio one state. Depending on the setting of the time/screen switch, $3, 2 predetermined number of Q transitions must ‘eccur before N: can produce the previously mentioned ad: Lieeten 1c | If | ira 1s RAM wale iG ICs RAM 0 | NCA ea | Fara = toa Nese = tacks 23 = vel tom beta ereacpreges Fig. 3 Pin assignment of the Pints One slots slisec as concn inns: 3293.the anropagelooten 27 | Fially, the RAM bytes com pared mith the one at 27S to | heck "for a matching bit | exfension Ths loop coniiguraion. 1" ths is suc: | Gessil the oiginal byte in | Location 07 RAM is restored by once more | address pointing to the RAM lo- inverting the accu co: holds a vec ‘ete. | 10 HODES :CLS +PRINT"NON-DESTRUCTIVE SIDEWAY RAM TE: 20 FEM Elektor Pubixe Doxain Software 35 REM By J Barendrecht So nare-a 2n7eow: 2872-8 | Se For Ine To 2 step 2: Ge Test SEL:LOAS14:STASE4.STABFERS Se Danae stag7t | 22 SBS Roate ze) ,y-romwass .ctas7a:s7Ac270) , ¥-LDACA7®) ,Y:CMP879:BNE error Se Gonea6e. STRC878) ,YsINT:BNE LOOP NEE RAKES. J5R4PeES [NCS71:LOARACO :CMPA71 No RAM AT 6 NO RAM AT ° NO RAM AT 2 || so Raw ar n |] xo Ran ar 2 NO RAM AT 8 No RAM AT ‘4 | No Ra ar 8 se0a9-12 END OF TEST Prt ist Copacirs: ics 1000, Semiconsivetors: 1c, =741s00 Ice 7atsme Ice 6062"" C6264 or 27128 1G 6264" Ce 6264 or 27128" cess time 200 no astor * Seo tot for memory ontguration seta, scalancous: jumpers and astocatd bioess for nis 8.0 PCE Type HSIED (eae Reasere Seviees nts and | cation, which is automatically writing it to the location in the | ineremented with the aid of the test | ¥ (index) register available in function is executed in line 32 | the 6802 processor. Location 072s holds the block number (00...QF), while location 097F is used to hold an error flag byte, FF, Returning to the loop in in line 70 it is seen that RAM errors cause the program to jump to line 11 where the error fag is set, and the faulty address is written into location 0070s. In line 128 bank switching contzol is retumed to the ULA, and BASIC is restarted. Each page ~286 bytes—in the extension memory that is successfully tested is identified with a + sign writen onto the screen. In this way, defective or nom present RAM pages can be singled out at a glance. ‘The test run below the listing in.) ‘Table 2 was periormed with the ROM/RAM card fitted with RAMS in the ICs, ICs, and ICe positions. The card was in- serted in the front slot (blocks 2 and 3). At power-on, the cor puter ran its BASIC interpreter as normally, since no L-ROMs were detected during the | system boot Running the RAM test program immediately showed that the upper half of block 3 was found faulty, which is not surprising in the absence of ICs (consult Table | once more), (EP)ROMs, of course, also produce a "no RAM at ” message. It must be remembered that the extension memory is only accessible through machine language subroutines; this is because the BASIC interpreter uses the same 16 Kbyte memory area. You may want to study the Previously discussed test Program a litle closer to be able to write your own subroutines for the creation of background memory or for ac cess to subroutines in pro prietary ROMs. With the | proposed ROM/RAM card, you will have no difficulty in ren- ning commercially available L ROMs such a5 LISP, FORTH, LOGO, etc., while ullities such as VIEW, editor/assembler packages, and games ROMs can be plugged in to com siderably add to the versatility of the Electron Plus One com- puter, B ‘This memory extension board has been designed and Geveloped with the permission Fig. 4 Component mounting plan for tho ROM/RAM boa 8-34 eet me mech 1967 of Acorn Computers Lid. Ed