Category Archives: Design

New section, FILES

I have created a Files Section, where all schematics etc will go.

You will find it in the menu above.

Currently all schematics for the ALU is there.

Some statistics, the card will be a 4-layer card 160x230mm approx. (dual Eurocard size)

Layer stackup as follows:

  1. Signal layer and  SPL0 Plane.
  2. SPL0 Plane
  3. VTT Plane
  4. Signal layer and VEE plane

In total there are some 800 components on each card:

Some 380 Resistors, 377 transistors and 19 LED

A complete 8-bit ALU would require some 3000 resistors and some 3000 transistors.

All transistors are the same BFR92P in SOT23

The resistors are 220R, 245R, 680R and 100R, in 0805.

Power supplies: VEE = -5,2V, VTT -2V.

The Design, Part 2: The ALU.

I have nearly completed the initial design of the ALU.

There are still some bits missing, and I havent simulated the whole ALU yet, only partly att block-level

It will support the following primitive functions:

  • AND
  • OR
  • NOR
  • XOR
  • ADD
  • SUB
  • SLT

Here is a screenshot of the ALU

Schematic Editor ( Circuit _ 1-BIT_ALU - Page _ MAINPAGE ) [Project _ ECL] Page _ 1

And the more readable pdf-file Main ALU

There is also a register section, 3 registers (at the moment) one bit per slice.

Schematic Editor ( Circuit _ 1-BIT_ALU - Page _ REG ) [Project _ ECL] Page _ 1

The pdf: Registers

There is three register A, B and Result.
the registers consist of one D Flip-Flop, per gate together with demultiplexers for selecting the function

The following operations is supported, it probably will be changed in the future:

  • CPYMA (copy from Data-bus to A)
  • CPYMB
  • CPYRM ( Copy Result to Data-bus)
  • CPYRA (Copy Result to A)
  • CPYRB

When you look at the schematics, it might be a Little bit strange, but using ECL has an advantage compared to other families, The complementary output is easily accessible, which means that I can use that to reduce the number of gates needed.

For example, if I need an 2-input AND-Gate, you will use two inverters on the input of a NOR-Gate, thus, using the inverted output off the previous gate, instead of the normal output, I can omitt the inverters, saving two gates (Three transistors per gate).

This is basically what will go on each ALU-Slice Circuit board, together with the Biasing Circuit (I am also playing with the Idea of having a common Bias Circuit for the whole computer).

Apart from the above, there will also be a separate PCB for Look-Ahead Carry, as well as status register and Zero detecting Circuit.

The Design, part 1: Overview

I havent put anything in stone, yet.

Slice and so on. All connected to one or more backplanes.

The backplane will most likely be wire-wrapped, since I feel that it is the simplest way to do it.

It will probably, at least in the beginning be an 8-bit computer, memory, I dont know at the moment (future problems, probably core memory).

The physical design, well, don’t know yet, why not as a Cray1?

Anyway, the future will see.