[sdiy] Using dual BBD chips for higher clock frequency

Neil Johnson neil.johnson71 at gmail.com
Thu Jun 16 14:16:57 CEST 2022


Hi,

Didier Leplae wrote:
> I'm currently working on a bucket brigade delay module using the MN3205 chip. The circuit is based on the Jan Hall article in Electronotes 87 (except using MN3205).  I'm interested in trying to add a second MN3205 chip in series in order to double the clock frequency thus reducing clock noise issues. Has anyone had experience doing this?

All you achieve by running at a higher clock is moving the noise out
of the audio band.  It is still there, just less audible.  At 4096
stages you already have huge amounts of noise, and with limited
headroom your SNR is going to be pretty poor.

> 1) Do I need to put any sort of buffering between Chip#1 & Chip#2?

Not usually.

> 2) Do I need a biasing trim pot before each chip? Or just Chip#1?

Yes.  The output stage of the first chip do not preserve the bias, and
anyway the bias of chip #2 is not guaranteed to the same as for #1.

> 3) Do I need to connect both outputs of Chip#1 through a clock null trim into Chip#2?

That would be advisable.

> 4) I'm using a PIC chip to generate the clocks. Would I need to put any sort of buffering to isolate the clock inputs of the two chips?

Definitely.  As Mike says that's a helluva lot of capacitance to
drive.  And you need the inverted clock as well so you might as well
do the inverting and buffering externally.  Especially with two chips,
that'll put almost 6nF on each clock line.

Neil



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