Something worth looking at...

[jh]

I don't know if were talking about the same arrays, but the ones I've
seen (don't remember the manufacturers) were total crap. They came
with an inflated piece of software to design mathematical functions
like square, square root, log, expo and so on, but when I looked closer
it was just single transistors, no temperature compensation, for these
functions, plus a few mediocre opamps.
As I said, I don't remember the manufacturers (there were two of them;
that was a 2 years ago, mind you) - I just saw a friend researching 
on these chips and was asked for advice. 
These things may be more advanced meanwhile, of course,
so don't take my word as gospel. (Never do that!) But what I
have seen was total crap. Looked like a lame attempt to give digital
designers an "easy" way to design analogue stuff (->).

JH.

-----Original Message-----
From:	Gene Zumchak [SMTP:zumchak at cerg.com]
Sent:	Thursday, April 01, 1999 3:56 PM
To:	Paul Perry
Cc:	synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl
Subject:	Re: Something worth looking at...

Paul,

    You can easily make op amps, comparators, v to f converters, filters,
switches  ...
for about a quarter an op amp.  Who needs 20 op amps for $16?  There is no
transconductance element in the aray.  Nothing is really controllable that I can
see.  I, too, would welcome a second opinion.

Gene Z



Paul Perry wrote:

> At 10:54 AM 31/03/99 -0500, Gene Zumchak  wrote:
> <field programmable analog array?>
> >    I downloaded the .pfd spec for this chip and found it not very suitable.
>
> well, perhaps not for a precision oscillator.....
> but, for anything else, I would like a second opinion..
> you can easily make amps, comparators, v to f convertors, filters, switches*
> so far as I can see (Electronics World didn't include the CD with the copies
> sent to the colonies)
>
> paul perry Frostwave P/L Melbourne Australia
>
> *and of course all these under voltage control, of course