4 ms·

Is there any reason that a device which smooths signal could not be introduced in the circuit, separating the analog computer from the rest of the digital elect

Is there any reason that a device which smooths signal could not be introduced in the circuit, separating the analog computer from the rest of the digital electronics on the same circuit. Electronics is not my studied field so I may be missing some things, but this seems like a rather simple problem for an EE to handle, no?

dragontamer 5y ago
> Is there any reason that a device which smooths signal could not be introduced in the circuit, separating the analog computer from the rest of the digital electronics on the same circuit. When you "smooth out 4GHz signals", it means you ignore 4GHz signals. Which means you no longer can operate at 4GHz. Instead, you operate at 1GHz (or slower). Any form of "smoothing" literally cuts your processing rate down, and now the digital circuit is just way faster than you. -------- Analog circuits smooth out 60Hz (power-line noise), and 30,000 Hz (VRM noise / Power-supply noise) all the time and try to operate at higher frequencies where those noises are non-existant. In these cases, you can use a "high pass filter" (smooth out low-frequencies)... which is roughly a memory-limiter. (If you forget everything every 0.008 seconds, then 60Hz noise (aka: noise that only occurs every 0.016 seconds) will be forgotten. -------- The low-pass filter (smooth out the high-frequencies) is the opposite, its an averaging / smoothing filter that you're more familiar with. If you average together all values every 0.01 seconds, you'll not be able to see 1000Hz information (aka: you have a 100Hz low-pass filter. High frequencies are averaged away, so the noise in the 1000Hz or 10,000Hz band is lost). But it also means all information in the 1000Hz or 10,000Hz+ bands are also lost. ------ Not that I ever dealt with GHz level circuits mind you. I'm just electronic hobbyist, who deals with MHz level issues. I'm sure GHz levels have all sorts of weird problems. But analog devices are quite fun to use and design. They're incredible... cheap and effective, no coding required. I do recommend people to play with Op-Amps and get your derivatives, integrals, multipliers, logarithms, addition and subtraction circuits all set up. You can do a lot of math at near instantaneous speeds (nanoseconds level delay) all analog. An Op-Amp with 800MHz gain/bandwidth (such as LTC6228: https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/LTC6228-6229.pdf https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data...) can probably operate over 100MHz signals easily. Or in digital terms: that's a "computer" that can calculate (derivative/integral/multiplier/logarithm/addition/subtraction) every 10-nanoseconds... roughly the speed of a modern L2 cache lookup. That's fast. And "OpAmps" are kind of the easy-mode circuit. Go into "hard mode" and do things with BJTs directly, and you're at 80GHz bandwidth-gain. (https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-BFP840FESD-DS-v02_00-EN.pdf?fileId=5546d46265f064ff01663896c6294eb9 https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-BFP840FESD-DS-v02_00-...)... maybe practically usable at 10GHz or so (faster than any digital computer)

dragontamer 5y ago

> Is there any reason that a device which smooths signal could not be introduced in the circuit, separating the analog computer from the rest of the digital electronics on the same circuit. When you "smooth out 4GHz signals", it means you ignore 4GHz signals. Which means you no longer can operate at 4GHz. Instead, you operate at 1GHz (or slower). Any form of "smoothing" literally cuts your processing rate down, and now the digital circuit is just way faster than you. -------- Analog circuits smooth out 60Hz (power-line noise), and 30,000 Hz (VRM noise / Power-supply noise) all the time and try to operate at higher frequencies where those noises are non-existant. In these cases, you can use a "high pass filter" (smooth out low-frequencies)... which is roughly a memory-limiter. (If you forget everything every 0.008 seconds, then 60Hz noise (aka: noise that only occurs every 0.016 seconds) will be forgotten. -------- The low-pass filter (smooth out the high-frequencies) is the opposite, its an averaging / smoothing filter that you're more familiar with. If you average together all values every 0.01 seconds, you'll not be able to see 1000Hz information (aka: you have a 100Hz low-pass filter. High frequencies are averaged away, so the noise in the 1000Hz or 10,000Hz band is lost). But it also means all information in the 1000Hz or 10,000Hz+ bands are also lost. ------ Not that I ever dealt with GHz level circuits mind you. I'm just electronic hobbyist, who deals with MHz level issues. I'm sure GHz levels have all sorts of weird problems. But analog devices are quite fun to use and design. They're incredible... cheap and effective, no coding required. I do recommend people to play with Op-Amps and get your derivatives, integrals, multipliers, logarithms, addition and subtraction circuits all set up. You can do a lot of math at near instantaneous speeds (nanoseconds level delay) all analog. An Op-Amp with 800MHz gain/bandwidth (such as LTC6228: https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/LTC6228-6229.pdf https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data...) can probably operate over 100MHz signals easily. Or in digital terms: that's a "computer" that can calculate (derivative/integral/multiplier/logarithm/addition/subtraction) every 10-nanoseconds... roughly the speed of a modern L2 cache lookup. That's fast. And "OpAmps" are kind of the easy-mode circuit. Go into "hard mode" and do things with BJTs directly, and you're at 80GHz bandwidth-gain. (https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-BFP840FESD-DS-v02_00-EN.pdf?fileId=5546d46265f064ff01663896c6294eb9 https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-BFP840FESD-DS-v02_00-...)... maybe practically usable at 10GHz or so (faster than any digital computer)