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A project log for AMBAP: A Modest Bitslice Architecture Proposal

Trying to unify and simplify a minimal architecture for various implementation technologies...

yann-guidon-ygdesYann Guidon / YGDES 10/01/2016 at 16:310 Comments

Construction of one bit of the register set is looking good. I made several adjustments to the original design:

For each bitslice module, I have selected a 2×40 pins header. Most of these pins are used for the MUX. There should be enough pins left for the ALU.

And here you can see 32 relays in all their glory, taking one half of a 160×100mm protoboard:

The control circuits will be pretty crazy too... I'm also building a carrier board/backplane to distribute all the contro signals.

Note: on this circuit I didn't manage the Vlatch and Vdrive correctly, the idea came after I soldered all the latches... So I split the 0V rail. The final version will have a split V+ but it will be "mostly compatible", at least for the connector, because V+ and 0V use 2 pins each. It's then a question of which pair to split.

Here I try to transcribe the connector's pinout:

Functionpin#pin#Function
0V latch120V drive
V+ latch34V+ drive
H (R7 out)56G (R6 out)
F (R5 out)78E (R4 out)
D (R3 out)910C (R2 out)
B (R1 out)1112A (R0 out)
Sel11314Sel1 (return)
Sel11516Sel1 (return)
Sel11718Sel1 (return)
Sel11920Sel1 (return)
Sel12122Sel1 (return)
Sel12324Sel1 (return)
Sel12526Sel1 (return)
OverwriteH2728Sel1 out
Sel22930Sel2 (return)
Sel23132Sel2 (return)
Sel23334Sel2 (return)
Sel23536Sel2 (return)
Sel23738Sel2 (return)
Sel23940Sel2 (return)
Sel24142Sel2 (return)
OverwriteF4344Sel2 out
SelWr 4546SelWr (return)
SelWr
4748SelWr (return)
SelWr
4950SelWr (return)
SelWr
5152
SelWr (return)
SelWr
5354SelWr (return)
SelWr
5556SelWr (return)
SelWr
5758SelWr (return)
(0V?)5960Result (WriteIn)
Latch6162Latch (return)
WriteBack6364WriteBack (return)
6566
6768
6970
7172
7374
7576
77
78
7980

Only 8 pairs left...

I can still add 4 pairs but it will be pretty delicate.


Yes, splitting the supply rail is a requirement. Apparently the best working voltage for Vlatch is in the range 3.2V-3.5V and could vary from board to board. A 3.3V regulator would fit...

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