Templetronics

Templetronics


Analogue

Projects > Project Overviews

Templetronicsis pleased to announce successful undertaking and completion of the following analogue design projects:

Analogue electronics symbols

Analogue Signal Chain/Transducer Interfacing

Extensive analogue design experience in stand-alone analogue systems and mixed signal domains in close proximity to digital circuits.

Project: Flight Control System:
Purpose: Custom analogue signal conditioning/signal chain circuitry.
Description:
Low noise, precision transducer interface design for a flight control data acquisition using 12 bit SAR ADCs and combinations of CMOS voltage feedback operational amplifiers and instrumentation amplifiers, ensuring adequate precision and resolution. The circuits used both single and dual supply configurations. Also excitation circuits designed for transducers , linear and reactive types.

In the design, common solutions to oscillating amplifiers, adjustment of noise gain/driving long cables, current limitation, low noise floors, and process, tolerance and temperature effects for worst case performance were added to the design, thus ensuring robust, operational interfaces capable of measuring the sensor range accurately over extremes of temperature.

Extensive simulation and early hardware prototyping, as per our standard methodology, with simulated and emulated sensor characteristics in hardware ensured success before adding in expensive sensors to pre-qualification units.

Project: Engine control and monitoring system:
Purpose: Successful re-design/new design of existing analogue signal conditioning/signal chain circuitry.
Description:
Low noise, precision transducer interface design for a multi-sensor data acquisition system. 12 & 14 bit precision achieved in the presence of fast digital circuitry. The circuits used both single and dual supply configurations.

Problems successfully overcome: oscillating amplifiers, adjustment of noise gain/driving long cables; unwanted frequency rejection in wanted signal range; overcoming parasitic capacitance in transducer cabling; precision analogue low noise circuit design in the presence of digital circuits; complex circuit layout with difficult PCB constraints.

See our Mixed Signal Pages for additional information.

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Power Controller

Project: Engine Power controller
Purpose: problem solving assignment on existing analogue circuit
Description:
We solved an analogue temperature sensitivity problem that was causing a high % yield failure in a production design. An SMPSU circuit contained a circumvention circuit that responded to microwave radiation.

It was found that during test, these circuits failed at both hot and cold temperature testing. Analysis of the board found that an area of the circuit, containing a PIN diode was extremely sensitive to temperature: the same problem manifested itself differently at hot and cold.

Location of the circuit and placement of the components were also found to be an issue.

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Power Electronics

Project: Various power electronics designs
Purpose: Power switching, amplification and control
Description:
The proliferation of low voltage electronics in recent years has eclipsed power electronics, but the emergence of energy and motion related applications such as power supply design, actuator design and motor drive stages, and even transducer interface excitation require knowledge of power electronics and its considerations, which we have implemented with great success across many systems from industrial to avionics equipment.

We have vast experience in power switching and control circuits in the range of 1A to 300A circuits from varying supply voltages of 5-12V to 600VDC, and 115VAC chopped systems, including full device design with power MOSFET (standard Si and new SiC types) and IGBT circuits, thyristors and gate drive circuits, protection, switching loss analysis, inrush control and protection (discrete/custom to off the shelf designs), and thermal analysis and relief.

We have designed Class D PAs (power amplifiers) at both high voltage (in the region of 315V-600VDC from DC Link), at high frequencies, and from battery supplies, and also lower voltage, high current relisations. High voltage and high current sources and power levels bring different challenges to PCB design: with high voltages, equipment has to consider electric field effects, and associated issues that affect this, whilst with high currents, thermal aspects become a huge driver in terms of operational performance, with wasted heat a large consideration at system level, and for reliability. EMI and safety effects must be considered for operational performance. Galvanic isolation and removal of noise paths are a serious consideration for high power systems, and we have provided numerous designs for these considerations.

We have experience in high power electronics H and 3-phase bridge design for brushed and brushless DC motors/3 phase synchronous machines, power stage driving, protection, current sense, including isolated designs, which are a must for noise minimisation, CMTI reduction and ease of high to low voltage domain interfacing when high value rapid change currents are present. Minimisation of current harmonic disturbances into generator systems is a serious consideration, applicable to both mains borne industrial loads and for avionics systems (as tested by DO160F/G), as well as power factor correction.

We also have exposure to AC-DC conversion and power factor conversion/rectification in aircraft systems using dedicated PFC supplies and also transformer/rectifier passive systems for actuator based systems in the range of 115VAC to 270VDC.

Transducers such as passive linear (e.g. potentiometers), and more complex reactive load circuits (e.g. resolvers, RVDTs and LVDTs) require power drive stages to drive them. Depending on location and environment, these can be near or far. We have extensive experience of near and remote located sensor driving, optimising the drive circuit to ensure measurements are unaffected by unwanted disturbances in the drive stages, and the excitation is not affected by losses.

See our EMC pages ( design and projects) for more information.

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Power Supply Design

Project: Various mixed signal PCBs
Purpose: Circuit power delivery
Description:
We have developed and executed power delivery strategies and associated EMC filtering strategies for analogue and digital circuitry, from low power precision op-amp signal chain circuits requiring "quiet" power supplies in the mA range, to modern high power MCU/FPGA supplies that require current delivery upto several tens of Amps.

We have designed strategies from LDOs to SMPSUs, considering thermal, protection (over current and over voltage), control strategies, loop dynamics and component effects, through to power path devices and output stages. All supplies have considered EMC aspects from the input through the controller to the output power path. For SMPSUs, strategies and topologies have been evaluated depending on the circuit needs. Compensation to ensure the dynamics of the control loop have been applied accordingly for fast dynamic loading response has been considered (to Type III system compensation), and losses in the power path have been reduced to give highly efficient designs.

Power strategies have considered regulation, pre-regulation and distribution of high current low voltage power planes, including soft-start, protection, and system power delivery and grounding to point-of-load (POL). We have also designed high power path circuits in the 10-30A range, and even up to 300A DC systems in exposure to high power DC motor systems and power electronics.

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Power Supply and System Protection Circuit

Project: Power supply and system protection circuit
Purpose: Custom analogue electronics design
Description:
Fast response time circuit (< 20us) successfully undertaken from cradle to grave. Fast acting edge triggered circumvention circuit for an SMPSU in response to a rapid transient event. Overall circuit response time and immunity to noise was critical to circuit operation (and critical system operation too). This was a special function design that was only necessary on detection of a critical surge event to maintain system operability.

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Pulsed Power Switch

Project: Pulsed power switch
Purpose: Custom analogue electronics design
Description:
A digitally controlled power switch, which had to account for varying power supply requirements, with the design taken from cradle to grave.

The circuit had to operate in a time of less than 200ms, and both represented a very challenging linear circuit design problem.

The timescales were 3 months behind on project but it became 2 months ahead of the rest and became the first design into production for the customer.

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RF Level Shifter and Fast DAS

Project
: CD/DVD Focus Servo Tracking
Purpose: Signal amplification and control
Description:
High speed 10MHz signal amplification and interface to a Flash ADC for purposes of loop closure for focus error signals for a CD/DVD ROM Drive. This was a dual problem circuit as the focus error signals required AC amplification for the RF information part, whilst alteration of the DC carrier to fit inside the ADC input voltage window range, thus both amplification and level shifting were features of this circuit. Eventually this circuit would interface to the overall focus control mechanism to ensure the laser diode was maintained at the optimum distance to read high bandwidth data from the optical disk.

This design involved high speed amplification of four signals to determine differential error, whilst adhering to the Nyquist Sampling Criteria, ensuring the Flash ADC received sufficient information whilst being bandlimited by an anti-alias filter at the ADC front end. Amplification was done using an IF video amplifier as a differential sensor, with level shifting done by a high fT BJT level shifter circuit, with stable bias to ensure the absolute levels required for conversion were adhered to.


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See the Control Systems projects page and Mixed signal projects page for more details on associated work.


Analogue electronics symbols
Analogue electronics symbols
Analogue electronics symbols
Analogue electronics symbols
Analogue electronics symbols
Analogue electronics symbols
Analogue electronics symbols

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