Contents
Part of group NOTES FROM THE VAULT and My FPGA pages and Technology.
Started 13Sep2021, updated 21Apr2022. (Burde jeg ha skrevet dette på norsk? Eller en på hvert språk? – translate)
Two early Autronica VLSI chips
In this note I will, hopefully with a lot of help from my friends, tell the story of two VLSI chips from the early 1980s . They were made for the Autronica company in Trondheim, Norway. We might succeed in pulling this up from the historic wastebasket and moving it over to the the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. I was employed at Autronica all of my professional career (1976-2017), bit I neither worked with the specification nor the design of these chips. But I was on the team that implemented the second (?) “loop controller” that used the smoke detectors which contained these chips. Standard disclaimer. This note is beginning to close..
Now, all of you who (in 2021) make your electronic chips (as firsts?) “in the garage”: the examples shown here weren’t at all “firsts”. But even so, it felt like it! Something was!
Confidentiality
Update 8Dec2021: nothing is any longer confidential here. But I keep the discussion, which speaks for itself:
Confidentiality (reasoning)
18Oct2021: In favour of keeping the confidentiality level: none (4 replies, including mine).
Autronica Fire and Security (https://www.autronicafire.com/en/) is presently (Oct2021) owned by Carrier (https://www.corporate.carrier.com). This is, from a formal standpoint, interesting. As one of the persons I asked about this replied:
«As for the plot, I can not see who today would want to abuse it. However, there is an American owner behind who then owns all IP of the products. But the product is old and out of production for many years. Based on this it should be possible to show the full plot.»
I guess that from a formal point of view it does not matter that it was displayed at the Autronica Collection and that I literally saved it from becoming paper waste. But in my opinion, the pragmatic view is that showing the real plot, not only half of it, would be acceptable. This would even enter into the same tradition as f.ex. Intel, Computer History Museum (CHM) and IEEE [6].
Of course, the level of detail may be of interest here. I have shown it at some practical pixel width of 4480 @ 6 MB, but even then it would take some guesswork to understand and fully reverse engineer.
The photo shows 300 pixels of this plot.
To produce the 4480 scan I initially made a 10916 width png @ 312 MB, but it would reveal no more detail than seen here.
I guess, this is the final blow against confidentiality. From one of the commenters – and we are soon forty years into the history of these chips:
| Norwegian | English |
| ..Men jeg tror jeg kan svare på det med konfidensialitet. For plot/masker så er de beskyttet ved lov bare i 10 år. De kunne prinsipielt ha vært beskyttet av en NDA med lengre varighet, men neppe 30+ år. Og de har ingen økonomisk verdi lenger. Jeg ser heller ikke noe annet som trenger beskyttelse så lenge etterpå. Det er kanskje mer viktig å dele det som historie. |
..But I think I can answer the case about confidentiality. For plots/masks, they are protected by law only for 10 years. They could in principle have been protected by an NDA with a longer duration, but hardly 30+ years. And they have no economic value anymore. I also do not see anything else that needs protection so long afterwards. It is perhaps more important to share it as a story. |
The plan
The idea here is to get quite some help from those who worked with these chips. Hopefully they would want to have their names here as well. Update: Thanks to all of you! I did get some help, you did allow your names and comments to be published here!
My plan is to get some idea of The plan, the vision, the specs, the story (or stories), and perhaps some names – of people, tools and technology. Who produced them in the final end, and how many transistors or gates did they have? Will any circuit diagrams have survived? What has not been thrown into the wastebaskets and what has not sunk into oblivion? This note should not go into much detail of how the units worked, nor how the smoke detectors worked. But I would like to know why Autronica got these two units made in the first place, and why, some ten years later, they were replaced by the immensely popular PIC microcontroller by Microchip Technology, initially coded in assembler.
About my style. I have added text in different chapters at different times. Therefore, some things might be contradictory. I think I will keep it this way, since my assumptions vs. what is correct (*) may hopefully be of some interest. If it’s bad enough I will of course try to fix it before it appears. Also see narrative style disclaimer.
(*) Correct? In English to remember is some times described as to recollect. I once heard by a neurologist on the radio that this is how the brain works. I guess that’s why pictures and scans make such a valuable collection.
Intro
From the note 194:[Aside: retrospective] – which follows a private note about my own LSI learning in the 1980s:
This was at a time when Autronica (the company I always worked for) already in 1982-83 had had two VLSI chips designed for them. An address unit and a detector unit for their first addressable smoke detector (as addressable, a first – even worldwide). These chips were used for many years. As some guys at work did the specification and testing, the VLSI implementation was outsourced to SINTEF in Trondheim. I also recollect. The original colour paper printing that they used to show to people resides by me, at least for the time being. At some moment in time the alternative was the dustbin.
Autronica Fire and Security AS moved from Lade to a new building at Bromstad in Dec2016. Some of the objects of our company museum were brought along. But in Nov2018 the “Autronicasamlingen” (Autronica Collection) was dismantled. Those of us who met did pass a scary container on the way in, we therefore tried to save what we could. This picture is from the collection in Oct2016, where the below proud printout is seen framed on the wall (yellow arrow). It was still there on the teardown day. I think this was the only part I saved. Oblivion happens even by me, I’m afraid. I went away that evening turning a blind eye. But there are rumors that the container in the end was not topped up. But what indeed survived, I think now is rather scattered around. I hope, even some at where they should belong: at the new Autronica location.
(Aside: I walked to the previous Autronica building today (14Sep2021) and shot the inset in the photo of the sign. The buildings seemed empty. The five floor main building is protected and is going to get some new use when the rest of the buildings will be demolished and new use will arise (Ringve pluss). I worked there for 40 years and have so many good memories from that collection of concrete, glass and metal – however, with lots of nice people inside.)
Where did these chips fit in?
Some of the data is from [2].
- Analogue detectors (1959-1979): panel BS-1 to BS-10 etc. Detectors: BE-1 etc.
- World’s first analogue addressable detectors: panel BS-3, detectors BJ-3, BH-3. Thick film technology was used
- Analogue addressable detectors containing the chips in this note (1983-1994). These were mounted on a thick-film substrate.
1. BS-30 panel with Intel MCS-48 microcontroller, coded in assembler. The panel processor used a scheduler that I built. The loop processors had no scheduler
2. 1989: DYFI® handling of the detectors in the loop controller with Intel MCS-51 processor and coded PL/M-51 and in Notes from the vault – 0x05 – RTX-51, an embedded scheduler. However, the panel part had an Intel 8088 coded in Modula-2 + run-time - Analogue addressable detectors with PIC controller (1994-2017)
* The first were coded in assembler, the next in C. AutroSafe coded in C and mostly VxWorks - With present state of the art (2017?-?)
Now study further at [1].
Technology at the time
Fig.6 – Technology
This figure is from [5] page 245, where it’s not quoted. It’s probably from a local compendium made by someone at the Institutt for fysikalsk elektronikk at NTH or at the ELAB – mentioned on page 244.
According to this, the technology was capable of about 250.000 transistors at the start of 1982. If it took a year to develop, then that present state of the art would have been about 160.000 transistors. (All assuming logarithmic growth.) This would be the maximum for our chips. I assume the number in reality was substantially lower.
1986 LSI course at NTH
From the course LSI – konstruksjon og hjelpemidler (in Norwegian) or rather LSI – design and tools I took at NTH in 1986 I get these facts, copied from my exam paper (below, PDF is here, but you won’t get my grade!). Of the red text, I only now was able to recollect SPICE! Not strange I guess, since I didn’t follow up much. I guess, the name throwing here, as well as the names, may be of interest. Especially since some/one of them had been participating in designing the Autronica chips.
Hovedemner
Alternative realiserings-metoder, strategier, NMOS og CMOS teknologier, prosessering, grensesnitt mot leverandør, simulering med SPICE2, TEGAS5 og RTSIa, utlegg med CALMP, testvennlig konstruksjon, testmetoder, teknisk/økonomisk avveining.
Forelesere / lecturers
Forskningssjef H.M. Bayegan, A/S Elektrisk Bureau
Siv.ing. Frank Berntsen, Nordic VLSI
Forsker H. Danielsen, ELAB
Førsteamanuensis Arne Halaas, NTH
Forsker O. Marvik, ELAB
Ingeniør Jan Meyer, Nordic VLSI
Professor Einar J. Aas, NTH
Direktør Oddvar Aaserud, Nordic VLSI
Ansvarlig faglærer / responsible
Professor Einar J. Aas, NTH
Main topics
Alternative realization methods, strategies, NMOS and CMOS technologies, processing, interface to supplier, simulation with SPICE2, TEGAS5 and RTSIa, layout with CALMP, test-friendly construction, test methods, technical / economic assessment.
1st chip (1982)
This is a plot printed out from some program on some computer. I guess the guy who printed it used a flatbed plotter with ink. This probably is the addressing chip / “adressepakken”. It basically counted pulses of a certain length and restarted on another length, allowing smoke detectors on a two wire loop (two wires out – detectors – two wires returned) to be individually handled. Loop, so that one broken wire may be detected while all detectors still are fully operational.
Fig.1 – UTLEGG AV AUTRONICAS FØRSTE KUNDESPESIFISERTE HALVLEDERKRETS JANUAR – 1982. (Layout of Autronica’s first customer specified semiconductor chip. January – 1982)
The drawn frame of the document above is 28.9 * 29.4 cm. The text is seen below the plot, and below the figure. The terms customer specified, is a direct translation from kundespesifisert. But I guess custom defined, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or even what we did use at the time: Very large-scale integration (VLSI) also cover. (VLSI started with MOS transistors in the 1970s).
Strengthening the assumption that this is the addressing chip is the fact that we may see seven similar parts on the top (the seventh is not seen in the 50% visible scan which is now present). This points toward seven D-type flip-flops, which would do 28 divide [0..255] on eight pins, or 27 divide [0..127] on seven pins, if the first of the seven was used as a conditioner only. See Wiki-refs.
The latter is most probable since the address range was [0..127] of Autronica (but before 1989 only [0..99] was used by the detector range).
In vivo
The VLSI chip was produced up to around 2005, when the production line or the factory was closed down. At that time Autronica only needed them to produce the last batch of spare parts for guarantee replacements, since they had been replaced by a completely different (processor based) technology.
I installed one of the fire detection sub-panels (BSU-50) at my private house in 1990, and have over the years replaced some of the detectors. But I hadn’t binned those that I replaced. Therefore my spare detector box proved as a valuable photo session source. So these are but two of the many examples of circuits where they the VLSI chips were used:
BSK-30
Fig.9 – Autronica BSK-30 addressing board with addressing VLSI chip. Photo: Øyvind Teig
This was part of a two-board (smoke, ion, temperature) detector. The chip was packed in a 16 pins DIL (Dual in-line) package. The Autronica part number was 8733-010-8739. About 1983.
Update 6Feb2022: Ronald Storøy tells in a phone call that he did the layout of this board, based on a circuit that was designed by either Bjørn Rennemo, Ivar Fiskvik or Åsmund Tiller. Storøy also participated in the layout of the below board.
In order to set the seven bits address, the service personnel who installed these used a battery powered dental drill to remove the black patches. However, with a dip switch it was easier:
BHA-31
Fig.10 – Autronica BHA-31 optical detector with the addressing VLSI chip (right). Photo: Øyvind Teig
Some years later (1990+/-) it was decided to make the detectors from one, instead of two boards. The same addressing VLSI chip was then put into a different and smaller package, talked about as “16 pins wide body” (about 7.5 mm). The Autronica part number was 8733-010-9044. I don’t know if the chip was scaled down to less µm and produced in a smaller size, or if the die originally was small enough.
2nd chip (fragments)
It may be that this also is the chip shown above, since I can also see seven equal components lined up on this chip. But these could also be the resistor ladder for the analogue to digital conversion, if the unit contains any such. Since analogue values are converted to time, then maybe an integrator took care of A/D conversion. However, it does look like the connection tabs are different. (Press Fig.3 and then the ⓘ and then press View full size.) So, until anything is proven to the opposite, I assume this is the 2nd chip.
Fig.2 – 2nd chip, what’s left after all these years floating around in my drawer at work (photo)
I have scanned this and added it in my favourite graphical text editor where I overlaid a circle and found that this was a 3″ wafer (25.4 mm * 3 = 76.2 mm diameter). (It’s Pages for macOS.)
I wish I hadn’t been so careless with it, which used to be a full disk. Or maybe even two..
Fig.3 – 2nd chip (detail) (Long lines every 5 mm, smallest division 0.5 mm)
I wonder how these were cut and bonded at the time. I don’t wonder how they do it today because I think it’s closer to what they do with a magic stick. But then, isn’t it pretty magic that they did this back then, long before the young who today think they are the first to live in the modern, were born?
Fig.4 – 2nd chip’s thinness
It is 0.35 mm thick. Thin, but not compared to the huge 300 millimetre wafers of thinness 40 µm as of 2021 (Infineon). A human hair is 17 – 181 µm according to Wikipedia so I guess it’s ok to say that it is “thinner than a human hair”.
Autronica at the time
- CEOs / disponenter (1961-84): the four founding fathers, including Bjørn Rennemo (1924-2018) who was the engineer of them
- Chairman of the board / styreformann (1979-84): Harry Amundsen
- Technical director / utviklingssjef (1980-85): Roar Arntzen
- Developing engineer / utviklingsingsingenør: Pål Brynjar Fløtten. Designed the discrete logic of the BS-3 panel plus codesigned the first VLSI chip
- Engineer / ingeniør: Ivar Fiskvik. Worked on the second VLSI chip
- Engineer / ingeniør: Åsmund Tiller. Was the man who knew “everything” (*)
- External contacts: Jan Meyer @ SINTEF ELAB
- Nordic VLSI (Nordic Semiconductor after 2004)
(*) Åsmund and I worked together on the loop controller for BS-100 (1987-1990)
The stories
I start with the person I first got contact with, and then continue in the same order:
Åsmund Tiller
Engineer at “the lab”. Summary of some mails:
| Norwegian | English |
| Jeg har nok ikke så mye å bidra med om selve prosessen. Jeg deltok til en viss grad i planlegging / spesifikasjon og senere i utprøving. Opprinnelig besto de adresserbare detektorene av to kretskort / tykkfilm-substrater. 1. Dette var en produksjonsmessig og logistikkmessig kostbar løsning. Disse to kortene skulle ha kontakt via et sinnrikt fjær-system i sokkel og detektorhode. 2. Dette var en dårlig teknisk løsning som skapte mye driftsproblemer. Utviklingen av “kode-brikken” (ved hjelp av Nordic VLSI) gjorde det mulig å samle all elektronikk på ett kort, noe som løste begge problemer nevnt over. | I probably do not have much to contribute about the process itself. I participated to a certain extent in planning / specification and later in testing. Originally, the addressable detectors consisted of two circuit boards with thick film substrates. 1. This was a costly and logistically expensive solution. These two cards should have contact via an ingenious spring system in the base and detector head. 2. This was a poor technical solution that created a lot of operational problems. The development of the “code chip” (using Nordic VLSI) made it possible to gather all electronics on one card, which solved both problems mentioned above. |
| Her er et eksempel på hva som kunne skje før vi fikk denne forbedringen: Autronica skulle på oppdrag fra Riksantikvaren overvåke et antall stavkirker. Jeg ankom Urnes stavkirke sammen en servicemann for å igangkjøre anlegget. Der ble vi møtt av en stolt installatør som anså seg ferdig med jobben og hadde revet stillasene. Han hadde imidlertid fått noen deler til overs – det var adresseenhetene som skulle sittet i detektorsokkelen. Det var bra ingen bivånet jobben med å klatre opp til alle detektorene for å utbedre mangelen | Here is an example of what could happen before we got this improvement: Autronica was to monitor a number of stave churches on behalf of the National Heritage Board. I arrived at the Urnes Stave Church with a serviceman doing the initial start-up. There we were greeted by a proud installer who considered himself finished with the job and had torn down the scaffolding. However, he had some parts left over – it was the address units that were to sit in the detector base. It was good no one attended the job of climbing up to all the detectors to rectify the problem |
| (Jeg spurte om han husket Jan Meyer, som jeg må ha pratet med i forbindelse med faget jeg tok. Jeg husker at han satt på kontoret sitt på NTH og jobbet med design på en “grafisk skjerm”.) | (I asked if he remembered Jan Meyer, whom I must have talked with in connection with the subject I took. I remember him sitting in his office at NTH doing design on a “graphical screen”.) |
| Jeg husker navnet Jan Meyer, ja og møte i lokaler på Flatåsen. Det var nok ganske tidlig, og komponenten ble i markedsføringen omtalt som den “første kommersielle VLSI i Norge“ | I remember the name Jan Meyer, yes and meeting in premises on Flatåsen. It was probably quite early, and the component was referred to in marketing as the “first commercial VLSI in Norway“ |
Nordic VLSI [4] had their first location at Flatåsen in Trondheim. I also remember going with them at a meeting there at a that time, but I cannot remember what the occasion was.
Pål Fløtten
Developing engineer at “the lab”. Summary of a mail:
| Norwegian | English |
| Det var Jan Meyer som digitaliserte den første kodebrikken. Jeg kontrollerte og godkjente tilstandsmaskinen som var resultat av digitaliseringen. Etterpå måtte jeg gå gjennom utlegget i detalj for også å godkjenne det før det gikk videre til prosessering . Det var ingen datastøtte den gang, så det var hardt arbeid. Jeg overså et signal som skulle ha vært invertert i første utlegg, så vi fikk en ekstra runde før vår første brikke var oppe og gikk. Prosjektet var meget vellykket. | It was Jan Meyer who digitised the first chip. I checked and approved the state machine that was the result of the digitisation. Afterwards, I had to go through the layout in detail to also approve it before proceeding to processing. There was no computer support at the time, so it was hard work. I ignored a signal that should have been inverted in the first layout, so we got an extra round before our first chip was up and running. The project was very successful. |
| Meyer holdt til i Industribygget i Innherredsveien i Trondheim, kanskje sammen med Aaserød. Jeg tror han lånte designutstyr på SINTEF i den tiden. Dette var før Nordic. Nordic oppsto før utvikling av Autronica brikke to. Det skulle bli en røykdetektor, men den ble aldri ble ferdigstilt. Brikken hadde for mange feil som de ikke fant ut av. Det var Ivar Fiskvik som hadde fått den nesten umulige oppgaven å håndtere denne på Autronica. | Meyer worked in the Industribygget (The Industrial Building) in Innherredsveien in Trondheim, perhaps together with Aaserød. I think he borrowed design equipment from SINTEF at that time. This was before Nordic. Nordic originated before the development of Autronica chip two. It was supposed to become a smoke detector, but it was never completed. The piece had too many errors that they did not resolve. It was Ivar Fiskvik who had been given the almost impossible task of handling this at Autronica. |
Edvar Klakken mentions (below) the the design equipment (also?) came from Stentor‘s machine park.
Harry Amundsen
Chairman of the board / styreformann.
| Norwegian | English |
| De notatene jeg har, og de jeg fikk reddet fra Autronica-samlingen er aller mest fra markedssiden, om møter med kunder og samarbeidspartnere og representanter i forskjellige land. Så når det gjelder utviklingssiden, er dette magert i disse notatene. | The notes I have, plus the ones I got saved from the Autronica collection are mostly from the market side, about meetings with customers and partners and representatives in different countries. When it comes to the development side, this is sparse in these notes. |
| Interessant at du skriver blogg! | Interesting that you write a blog! |
| Jeg bidrar gjerne med informasjon om det jeg vet, men som du skjønner blir nok det mer på markedssiden. For å illustrere var vår viktigste info-kilde tidsskriftet “Ship on Order”, som ga en internasjonal liste over skip under bygging. Her fikk vi navn på verft, skips- og motortyper og rederier. Og så ble det kontaktmøter og notater og avtaler og kanskje noe om nyutvikling. Har du konkrete spørsmål skal jeg naturligvis svare deg så godt jeg kan. | I am happy to contribute information about what I know, but as you can see, there will probably be more on the market side. To illustrate, our main source of information was the magazine “Ship on Order”, which provided an international list of ships under construction. Here we got names of shipyards, ship and engine types and shipping companies. And then there were contact meetings and notes and agreements and maybe something about new development. If you have specific questions, I will naturally answer you as best I can. |
| Men jeg har jo vært pensjonist i over 20 år! | But I have been retired for more than 20 years! |
Edvar Klakken
Edvar Klakken, who used to work for Stentor at the time (located in Industribygget, mentioned above – here in Trondheim) (but he has for quite some years now worked for Autronica), writes in a mail in Nov2021:
“What you write about Nordic is interesting. Stentor also was involved when Nordic started up. Stentor’s owner and CEO Otto S. Knudsen was chairman of Nordic’s board as far as I can remember. Nordic also took over some of Stentor’s ASIC stuff: some huge graphics screens and a large computer. Stentor had hired two (quite expensive!) Englishmen who were proficient in ASIC design. However, the project was terminated due to Stentor’s rather strained economy in 1982. Nordic moved into Industribygget in the offices where Stentor’s ASIC development equipment was located, they were sitting in the hallway on Development (the hallway was blocked by a light wall). Some of our sales people who had company visits from customers passed through Development and had a tour of Nordic at the same time, they were told that they had to stop that practice….»
I guess this tells that the Autronica chip was developed in Industribygget.
Stentor later changed name to Stentofon and had this Bang&Olufsen designed PAMEX intercom installed all over the world: here. Autronica had quite much cooperation with Stentor.
Nordic people
The original quotes from these persons are shown in the tables, headed with Norwegian. The rest would be my intermingled comments.
Trond Sæther
Nordic VLSI (Nordic Semiconductor)
| Norwegian | English |
| Disse ble startet da vi var på «vei ut døra» på ELAB, men jeg mener de ble fullført og satt i produksjon i regi av Nordic VLSI. Mener den ene het BJA-40 i Autronica terminologi. Tror det var Hughes Micro Electronics 7.5 µm Metal Gate prosess (CMOS, med både P og N kanal transistorer) disse ble produsert i. | These were started when we were on the “way out the door” at ELAB, but I think they were completed and put into production under the auspices of Nordic VLSI. I think one was called BJA-40 in Autronica terminology. I think these were produced in the Hughes Micro Electronics 7.5 µm Metal Gate process (CMOS, with both P and N channel transistors). |
My comment: According to Åsmund Tiller the BJA-40 type name is correct. The nomenclature went like this:
| B | brannvarsling | fire detection |
| J | ionekammer/sensor | ion chamber / sensor |
| A | sub-enhet | sub unit |
| 40 | enhet for både adresserbart og konvensjonelt system | unit for both addressable and conventional system |
Frank Berntsen
Nordic VLSI (Nordic Semiconductor)
| Norwegian | English |
| Takk for linker. Mye informasjon der jeg har glemt, men det kommer tilbake når jeg leser dette. | Thanks for the links. Lots of information I had forgotten, but it’s coming back when I read it. |
| Jeg var ikke mye involvert i disse to prosjektene, bare perifert som konsulent på digital. Det meste tror jeg ble gjennomført i ELAB regi og på den tiden jobbet jeg med et par andre prosjekter, hvorav ett i samme teknologi (kilometerteller for dieselbiler). | I was not much involved in these two projects, only peripherally as a consultant on the digital stuff. I think most of it was carried out under the auspices of ELAB and at that time I worked on a couple of other projects, one of which was using the same technology (kilometer counter for diesel cars). |
| Det var vel først og fremst Jan Meyer som holdt på med disse. | It was probably first and foremost Jan Meyer who worked on these. |
| CMOS prosessen hos Hughes var en lisensiert «shrink» av RCAs 10 µm teknologi (den ble omtalt som 3 mil (7.5 µm) og 4 mil (10 µm), men de hadde gått over til «metric mil» på den tiden). | The CMOS process at Hughes was a licensed “shrink” of RCA’s 10 µm technology (it was referred to as 3 mil (7.5 µm) and 4 mil (10 µm), but they had switched to “metric mil” at the time). |
| Jeg tror kanskje spenningsområdet var mindre enn 18V, 10 µm-kretsene ble solgt med 15V spesifikasjon. | I think maybe the voltage range was less than 18V, the 10 µm circuits were sold with 15V specification. |
My comment: For the BS-100 loop controller BSU50 (with the RTX-51 scheduler, here), the nominal voltage on the two-wire loop was 14 Volts. The units connected to the loop were all specified to 12 – 16 Volts. Åsmund Tiller does not think there was any series regulator, but there was indeed an 18V zener diode. Since Autronica installed millions (my qualified guess) of these and had few returns, I would think that 15V is somewhat conservative? The RCA 4000-series of logic chips (Wikipedia here) had 20V VDD, at least down to 10 μm:
“.. RCA also used CMOS for its 4000-series integrated circuits in 1968, starting with a 20 μm semiconductor manufacturing process before gradually scaling to a 10 μm process over the next several years.” (Wikipedia: CMOS)
| Norwegian | English |
| Re: Spenningsområdet
For CD4000-serien til RCA var det to forskjellige typer, CD4xxxA og CD4xxxB. Jeg brukte selv kun A-varianten fordi den var «unbuffered» og mine anvendelser var lineære.
|
Re: The Voltage range
For the RCA CD4000 series, there were two different types, CD4xxxa and CD4xxxb. Personally I only used the A variant because it was “unbuffered” and my applications were linear.
|
| Kretsen kan utsettes for absolutt maksimum i perioder uten å ødelegges, men er ikke garantert å fungere etter spec og det kan være destruktivt over lengre tid.
Det er mulig at A og B har samme baseteknologi og at forskjellen ligger kun i design. En forskjell er at det alltid er et komplementært buffer på alle utganger i B-varianten. Min konklusjon: Det er nok riktig at Autronicas kretser var direkte koblet til en loop med 12-16V og at de kunne tåle opp til 18V. Zeneren kan være for å beskytte mot overspenning. |
The circuit may be exposed to absolute maximum during periods without being destroyed, but is not guaranteed to work according to spec and it can be destroyed if used like this for an extended period of time.
It is possible that A and B have the same base technology and that the difference is only in design. A difference is that there is always a complementary buffer at all outputs in the B variant. My conclusion: It is probably right that Autronica’s circuits were directly connected to a loop with 12-16V and that they could withstand up to 18V. The zener may be to protect against overvoltage. |
| Om transistor-tall
Jeg har lett etter gamle GDS-filer, de kan faktisk leses av dagens verktøy. Men jeg har ikke funnet noen fra 80-tallet hos Nordic. Det er en liten mulighet for at de ligger på DLT tape eller CD / DVD i en safe vi fortsatt har med noen gamle backups, men jeg har ikke tid til å lete eller evt. å få konvertert mediet (I alle fall ikke nå, jeg skal be om at de ikke kastes før vi har sjekket ut i forhold til historisk interesse). Det nærmeste jeg tror det er mulig å komme er et estimat basert på de 7 D-vippene. Jeg vil tro at disse er koblet som en rippleteller og at det er 18 transistorer i hver vippe (det kunne i teorien være 26 transistorer om telleren også hadde skift-funsjon, men jeg tror dette kom først et par år senere. |
About transistor count
I have searched for old GDS files, they can actually read by today’s tools. But I have not found any from the 80s at Nordic. There is a small possibility that they are located on some DLT tape or CD / DVD in a safe we still have with some old backups, but I do not have time to look or possibly get the medium converted (at least not now, I Should make sure that they are not thrown away before we have checked out in relation to historical interest). The closest I think it is possible to come is an estimate based on the seven D flip-flops. I would think that these are connected as a ripple counter and that there are 18 transistors in each tilting (it could in theory be 26 transistors about the counter also had shift function, but I think this came first a few years later. |
- See List of semiconductor scale examples, even if it does not resolve the A- and B-series scales
- Calma GDS files on Wikipedia here. Digital Linear Tape (DLT) tape here
A cell library note from 1982
| Norwegian | English |
| Vedlagt er et notat jeg fant en skanning av, som jeg selv skrev i 1982, i forbindelse med kilometerteller-prosjektet for dieselbiler, i samme teknologi. Jeg lagde i den sammenheng vårt første digitale bibliotek for å kunne få noe gjenbruk på layout og karakterisering (km-teller var en mye mer digitalt design, med kun et optisk interface med fotodiode/LED for IO). | I did find a scan of the attached memo. I wrote this note in 1982, in connection with the kilometer counter project for diesel cars, using the same technology. In this context I wrote our first digital library with the purpose of getting some reuse on layout and characterisation (the kilometer counter was a much more digital design, however with only one optical interface with a photodiode / LED for IO). |
| Om du sammenholder plottene i mitt notat med autronicakretsen så må du ta rom for at det hadde vært en del evolusjon mellom de to prosjektene. I notatet mitt var det nye design for km-teller, men de var sikkert sterkt påvirket av det vi hadde gjort tidligere. | If you compare the plots in my memo with the Autronica circuit, you must take into account that there had been some evolution between the two projects. In my memo there were new designs for the odometer, but they were probably strongly influenced by what we had done before. |
Even if this note is in Norwegian, the circuit diagrams are international:
Fig.8 – page 12 of “Cell library EKMT” by Frank Berntsen, ELAB (Trondheim), 1982
Download full PDF here (6.6 MB).
Prosjekt: Elektronisk kilometerteller. Beskrivelse av CMOS-celler. SPICE simuleringer av disse. / Project: Electronic odometer. Description of CMOS cells. SPICE simulations of these. Additional names: K.A. Ingebrigtsen, Jan Meyer, Oddvar Aaserud, A. Moldestad (Åstvedt Ind.).
More
Next note in the series → is also about an Autronica matter (but it’s in Norwegian, translate)
References
Wiki-refs: Digital dividers. NTH → NTNU. SPICE
- A piece of Norwegian industrial history, by Autronica Fire and Security. See https://www.autronicafire.com/en/about-us/the-story/
- .. “og det var liv laga“. “En beretning om Autronica gjennom 35 år – for ansatte og andre med nær tilknytning til Autronica.” By Harry Amundsen (1992). In Norwegian
- .. “og livet går videre“. “En beretning om Autronica gjennom 40 år – for ansatte og andre med nær tilknytning til Autronica.” By Harry Amundsen (1997). In Norwegian. The last page is shown in Notes from the vault – 0x04
- Jan Meyer, Oddvar Aaserud, Frank Berntsen and Trond Sæther started Nordic VLSI in 1983 (Nordic Semiconductor since 2004). Started in Trondheim: A real technology adventure. Since the start in Trondheim in 1983, Nordic Semiconductor has grown to almost 500 employees who develop technology we all use in everyday life. See here. The original is in Norwegian: Startet i Trondheim: Et ekte teknologi-eventyr. Siden starten i Trondheim i 1983, har Nordic Semiconductor vokst til nesten 500 ansatte som utvikler teknologi vi alle bruker i hverdagen. Adresseavisen 09Nov2017. See https://www.adressa.no/brandStudio/2016/05/20/Et-ekte-teknologi-eventyr-12753860.ece
- Verktøy og vitenskap. Datahistorien ved NTNU av Ola Nordal. Tapir akademisk forlag, Trondheim 2010. ISBN 978-82-519-2610-2. In Norwegian. (“Tools and science. The computer history at NTNU”)
- THE SURPRISING STORY OF THE FIRST MICROPROCESSORS. You thought it started with the Intel 4004, but the tale is more complicated. By Ken Sherriff . IEEE Spectrum (Aug2016). See https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-microprocessors
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