A conservative approach can yield a state-of-the-art product. (HP's development of the 16550A 102-channel plug-in for the 16500 series of logic-analysis systems) (one of three articles in the last of a four-part series, 'Design It Right')

EDN, November, 1992 by Strassberg, Dan

The 16550A is a 102-channel plug-in for Hewlett-Packard's popular 16500 series of logic-analysis systems. The board uses custom ICs of two types: a very-large-scale integrated CMOS chip and a much smaller bipolar chip that contains, mainly, high-speed comparators. According to HP, if you accept the number of transistors on a chip as an index of the IC's complexity, the CMOS chip, with roughly 1.2 million transistors, is about as complex as an i486 [mu]P.

HP calls the CMOS IC a logic analyzer on a chip. It is the second such device that the Colorado Springs Division has designed. (In addition to logic analyzers, the division manufacturers HP's digital scopes and in-circuit emulators.) The first logic analyzer on a chip appeared in 1987 in plug-ins for the...

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