[time-nuts] Frequency divider design critique request

David C. Partridge david.partridge at dsl.pipex.com
Tue Jul 15 17:16:14 UTC 2008


Magnus,

Was the attached what you had in mind?

Thanks
Dave 

-----Original Message-----
From: Magnus Danielson [mailto:magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org]
Sent: 10 July 2008 23:07
To: time-nuts at febo.com; david.partridge at dsl.pipex.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Frequency divider design critique request

From: "David C. Partridge" <david.partridge at dsl.pipex.com>
Subject: [time-nuts] Frequency divider design critique request
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:30:56 +0100
Message-ID: <C2B66AD4CD8D4E64A0C47D3C29559EA6 at APOLLO>

David,

> As I've mentioned before, I've been working on the design of a 
> frequency divider to go with my TB.
> 
> The idea is 10MHz sine in from TB, output 2.5Vp-p 50% duty cycle 
> square wave into 50R (5V into 1M), at 10Mhz, 5MHz, 1MHz and decade 
> selectable 100kHz down to 1Hz.  All rising edges synchronised to the 
> 10MHz clock rising edge (or as near as I can get with 74AC logic).

Good initial concept.

> With a considerable amount of constructive criticism from Bruce Griffiths
> (thank you again Bruce) I believe the design now to be complete.   
> 
> The aim is to have as low a level of nasties as possible (i.e. fit for 
> time-nuts).
> 
> All faults are my own - no blame attaches to Bruce!

The one thing I would do is to hook caps over at R24 to R26, say 10 nF, to
make the thumb wheel leads less susceptible to noise and less of areal for
the edges from the CMOS. The thumb-wheel either keep them floating in one
end or didged hard to +5V. To avoid both E and H fields, a series-resistor
should be included.

> I've not yet subjected this design to the ultimate simulation tool 
> (PCB, parts and solder) yet, and I have no means to test it for levels 
> of jitter (phase noise) or similar nasties.

I am sure we can come up with some arrangement for that. Several handy
time-nuts around.

> I think that it's now the right time to open the design up for 
> critique from a wider audience before I commit it to copper.
> 
> I'm therefore attaching the design as a PDF file for your comments.
> 
> A few comments are in order:
> 
> 1) The 5Mhz and 1MHz outputs are re-clocked TWICE deliberately to 
> delay them by one clock cycle so they line up with the 1MHz and lower
outputs.

Neat.

> 2) The selected output (at the '4051 mux) from the ripple counter 
> chain is re-clocked to 1MHz before re-clocking to 10MHz as the 
> worst-case delay in the chain of '4017s is large enough that the lower 
> frquencies wouldn't reliably re-clock directly to 10MHz.

Good thinking!

> I have also done a PCB layout (4-layer) and I'm happy to send a print 
> of the top/bottom layers to anyone who feels that they want to comment 
> on that (inner layers are ground and power).

... and you say they are not of interest?

> Let the brick-bats be thrown!

I have a lots of bricks around me (my summerhouse is build with old handmade
bricks) but I wont toss them.

So far, only the thumbwheel is the only minor flaw that I could come up
with.

I need to check some more...

I rather have a few questions on why you did not include certain features...

In my experience, having a few extra 10 MHz signals to feed Ext Ref on
instruments is a good thing. That way you can keep these others at hand for
various setups you need to do.

I would consider a dedicated 1 PPS output.

I would consider a synchronise feature with a PPS/synchronise input. It
should be wise to not directly wire it to the counter resets, but provide an
arm button and maybe a very simple arrangement to indicate "left", "on mark"
and "right" with red, gren, red LEDs. Just a tought. The arm button could
also have an electrical input, but I am running into creaping featurism
here.
I think however that synchronisation might be a good thing. That way you can
shift the phase of the signal to fit your need. Pulling and inserting the 10
MHz cable is a very crude way of doing it.
Maybe it would be just too much fuzz for too little gain, what do I know,
but I know I would enjoy seeing it.
A pulse-add/pulse-swallow technique (with a shift in initial divide by 10)
could be used to provide inc/dec functionality for a manual movement of
phase.

Cheers,
Magnus
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.4.7/1546 - Release Date: 11/07/2008
06:47

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com 
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.4.11/1553 - Release Date: 15/07/2008
05:48
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Mux wiring changes.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 12876 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts_lists.febo.com/attachments/20080715/b72512ba/attachment.pdf>


More information about the Time-nuts_lists.febo.com mailing list