EE 330 Final Design Projects Spring 2015

Students may work individually or in groups of 2 on the final design project. Partners need not

be in the same laboratory section. Please email the name of your group members and rank-

ordered project preferences to:

chinwen@iastate.edu

Please send only one request per group.

In the rank-ordering, please submit your top 3 choices. At most 3 groups will be assigned per project on a first come first serve basis. Selection time will start at 8:00 p.m. on Monday April 6. Any requests with a time-stamp prior to 8:00 will be placed at the bottom of the priority list.

We will try to notify you about final project selections by 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday April 7.

Please start early on your project, and recognize that some projects may require a bit of research and on-your-own learning. If you get stuck on how to accomplish a task, please consult with

either TA or with the course instructor for guidance on how to resolve issues that may arise.

READ each project carefully and thoroughly! You cannot switch projects once you have been assigned to the project.

Project 1 Digital Alarm Clock with Battery Backup

Project 2 Monophonic Keyboard

Project 3 Laser Controlled Track Following Car

Project 4 LED Display Device

Project 5 Voice Controlled Light Controller

Project 6 Digital Potentiometer/Amplifier/DAC

Project 7 Transceiver Block

Project 8 Laser Reaction Game

Project 9 Power and Power Factor Meter

Project 10 Traffic Volume and Velocity Monitor

Project 11 Automatic room light controller with a visitor counter

Project 12 Self-Defined

Project 1 Digital Alarm Clock with Battery Backup In this project, design an alarm clock integrated circuit in a 0.5u CMOS process which meets the following

requirements. The design should be complete through post layout fabrication.

1. The time and thealarm time are programmed by the user. The time is input as typical of most digital alarm clocks with the buttons on the device. This does not need to have provisions for date, time zones or daylight savings time.

2. Assume a power supply comprised of a transformer and a rectifier/ voltage regulator shown

below is available. The input to the transformer is that standard 60Hz line voltage. The voltage

regulator can provide a constant 5V DC output voltage. The 60Hz line frequency is to be used as the

time base in the clock when power is available.

Rectifier

and

Regulator

5V DC

120 VRMS

60Hz

120:5

3. Assume that when power goes out that there is a 9V battery backup that can be used to keep

the clock and alarm functioning. A time-base (sometimes called an oscillator) needs to be built to serve

as the “clock” when the line power is lost. It is not necessary that the time be real precise when the

power is off. If the time base varies by +/- 20% when the power is off, that is acceptable for this project.

4.

When the time matches the alarm time, an alarm is sounded until being turned OFF or SNOOZE is press

ed. SNOOZE delays the alarm for 10 minutes at which time the alarm sounds again.

Inputs

Alarm Program enable – allows alarm to be programmed

Time program enable – allows time to be programmed

OFF- turn off the alarm

UP button – for adjusting hours/min of time or alarm up one count

DOWN button – same as above but down

SELECT button – Accepts value and stores if in program mode. When it in programming mode, hours are

selected first, and once SELECT is pressed, the minutes can be altered. A second press of SELECT resumes

operation as normal.

SNOOZE button- delay the alarm for 10 minutes from it last went off.

Outputs

LCD display common of digital clocks including hours and minutes. Assume 24 hour military clock. using

whatever LCD display you want. Specify the display by commercial part number. A display that has all 6

segments in a single package will require considerably less pins on the IC.

Alarm – hooked to whatever annoying device will get the person awake. But you must specify exactly

what the device is along with a commercial part number and its specifications.

Project 2 Monophonic Keyboard This project is to design an integrated circuit in a 0.5um CMOS process that preforms as a monophonic

piano ( ideally only one key can be pressed at a time). The design should include layout and post-layout

simulation results. The frequency of the output will be based on the frequencies of the keys of a

standard 88-key piano. Should the user press more than one key at a time, the piano should be robust

in that it will not cause permanent damage. You can specify what the output will be if more than one

key is pressed at a time. Your piano should have the ability to play at least 3 octaves of keys (36

consecutive keys).

The output should be relative to ground and should be approximately 1V p-p when a key is being played.

The output impedance should be less than 10K.

You will have one input clock signal available at any frequency you choose.

The number of pins on the IC is limited to 24 max.

The shape of the output waveform should be something that is reasonably pleasant to listen to but the

shape and amplitude should be the same for each note. Unfortunately, square waves are not pleasant

to listen to. One way to control the waveshape is to use a DAC to generate a sine wave or a wave

similar to that coming from a violin or some other musical instrument. A DAC can be formed from a

series of resistors by tapping into different nodes in the series. A DAC with 16 resistors or 32 resistors

can be easily built with a serpentine resistor with tap points at the edges of the serpentine.

Project 3 Laser controlled track following car Design a laser-controlled tracking controller for a modified RC car. The RC car will be modified by

disabling the RC control function and simply using the car for its movement and steering. The car should

be designed to follow a specially constructed track. A segment of the track is shown below. The width

of the black stripe is 2”. The white on the sides of the stripe will be highly reflective. Gradual curves in

the track will occur to eventually form a closed loop. Your goal should be to see how fast you can

navigate this track. Once a verbal start command is issued, you must be able to start the car from 20

feet away with a laser pointer. Once the car starts moving it will have to navigate a nominally circular

track with no directional assistance from you. You should include speed control with a laser pointer as

well. Your design should keep the car on the track without any user input. You may not use a

microcontroller.

Project 4 LED Display Device This project is do design an integrated circuit that can display a short message on a 7-segment display.

The message should be up to 25 characters long and the display should cycle through the message with

one character being displayed every 1 sec. After the message is complete, there should be a 5 second

delay and then the message should be repeated. This should continue indefinitely. There should be a

small number of push buttons that serve as control inputs. The modes of operation should be:

Program, Set, Scroll. You may have at most 5 control pins. The circuit should be designed to operate

with a specified display device. The only components that should be attached to the IC should be the

display device, a battery, and up to 5 SPST switches. You may add up to 5 LEDs to facilitate

programming.

Project 5 Voice control Light Controller This project involved the design of an integrated circuit in a 0.5u CMOS process that can be used to control

a Triac for turning on lights in response to a voice command. The controller should handle up to a 500

watt load. Assume you have available a 5V dc power supply.

Assume you have a phototransistor that is available as a light sensor. If the light level is above a

predetermined level, the lights should be able to be turned on with a SPST switch. Pressing the SPST

switch a second time should turn the lights off. If the light level is below a predetermined level, they

should be turned on by a voice command. Assume a microphone input is available to your system for the

purpose of the voice control. Specify a commercial microphone that you will use in your design. Also

specify a commercial Triac that will be used for the control of the light. When activated by voice

command, they should turn off automatically after 30 seconds after the last recognized voice command.

Project 6 Digital Potentiometer/Amplifier/DAC

This project is for the design of a digital potentiometer/Amplifier/DAC integrated circuit.

The design should include layout and post-layout simulation results.

Design a multi-purpose digitally controlled analog building block. This structure can

serve as a digital potentiometer, an inverting or noninverting amplifier and a DAC depending

upon the state control inputs. A method of designing the operational amplifier will be provided

to you by your TA. Assume VDD=2.5V and VSS=-2.5V. The state control signals AO and A1

will identify one of four states of operation of this device. The operation control signals CO, C1, C2 and C3 are used to control the characteristics of the device in each of the four states.

When AO and A1 are high, the circuit is to perform independently as a digital

potentiometer and an operational amplifier. The digital potentiometer should have 16 taps, each

with a nominal impedance of 5K. When A0 is high and A1 is low, the circuit is to perform as a 4-

bit DAC where the op amp is connected in a unity gain configuration to a tap on the

potentiometer and the DAC output is determined by the control settings on the potentiometer.

The DAC input, often termed “VREF” should be connected to one end of the resistor string and

the other end should be grounded. When A0 is low and A1 is high, the circuit is to perform as a

programmable inverting finite gain amplifier. One end of the resistor string should go to the op

amp output, the “wiper” to the “-“ input and the other end of the resistor string to the input.

Finally, when A0 is low and A1 is low, the circuit is to perform as a programmable noninverting finite gain amplifier.

The digital potentiometer is similar in principle to the Maxim DS 1666 but with a

reduced number of taps, with parallel rather than serial control of the tap position, and with a linear taper rather than an audio taper.

Project 7 Transceiver Block This project is for the design of a transceiver integrated circuit. The design should

include layout and post-layout simulation results.

Serial channels are widely used for communicating between computers that may be a few

feet apart of on the other side of the world. Invariably the data that is to be transmitted is parallel

data so a parallel to serial conversion is needed to get the data ready for transmission and a serial

to parallel conversion is needed to convert the data from serial data to parallel data at the

receiver. Invariably the data is transmitted from a synchronous system on transitions of a clock

and invariably the data at the received is synchronized relative to a clock at the receiver.

Unfortunately the two clock frequencies may not be exactly the same and unfortunately it is

generally considered impractical to transmit the clock signal to the output so the clock must be

recovered from the serial data stream itself. This is often done with a phase-locked loop (PLL)

at the receiver which contains an internal voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) that must be

“locked” to the input data sequence. The “recovered” clock is simply the output of the VCO in

the PLL. The PLL must obtain regular measurements of the phase difference between the VCO

output and the data input to maintain lock. It is common in many applications to have periods of

time where no data is available and during these intervals, long strings long serial strings of 0’s

or 1’s must be transmitted. Unfortunately, it is difficult (actually impossible) for the PLL to

maintain lock in the absence of transitions on the incoming data stream. To circumvent this

problem, the parallel data is often coded prior to serial transmission to guarantee that there will

be ample transitions in the transmitted data to recover the clock. Of course, the received data

must be decoded at the output to recover the intended data sequence. 8B: 10B and 4B:5B coders

are often used for this purpose. In an nB: (n+1)B coder, an n-bit word is converter to an n+1 bit

word with a fixed mapping that will guarantee that the maximum number of consecutive 0’s and 1’s in the transmitted data stream is small (like 3 or 4) irrespective of the nature of the input data.

In many communication channels, data itself is arranged in packets in which a fixed

number of bytes are put together sequentially to form a packet. A header is generally placed at

the front of each packet. This header serves two purposes. One is to give information about

where the packet is to go or where it comes from. The second is to allow for synchronization of the packet so that the bytes within the packet can be appropriately framed.

The design of transceivers which perform these functions is widely undertaken in

industry but it is beyond the scope of this course. This project will focus on a part of a

transceiver block associated with the encoder and decoder. The PLL that is usually used for clock and data recovery is not a part of this project. Details follow.

a) Devise a 4B-5B coding scheme that will guarantee at most 3 consecutive 0’s or 1’s for

any input data sequence.

b) Design a circuit that will take an 8-bit wide parallel data sequence at 10K bytes/sec and

serialize it using the 4B-5B coding scheme you devised in part a). You may assume that a 10KHz clock is present that is synchronous with the input data.

c) Design a receiver that will take the serial data string, decode it, and recreate an 8-bit wide

data sequence at the output.

d) Design a “comma detect” circuit that will allow for proper framing of the received data.

The “comma” should be a 10-bit code that can not represent any data sequence. The “comma”

would be inserted in place of a byte in the transmitted data stream for synchronization and the

receiver should frame the received data relative to the detected “comma” whenever a comma is

detected. After the “comma” is detected, the received should be in synch with the input data sequence.

Project 8 Laser Reaction Game Design a laser, build, and demonstrate a laser beam reaction game to see how fast players can react

to a sequence of visual cues. In this project, you will create a rectangular 3 x 3 grid of Lamp:photo

detector pairs spaced on a wall at a distance of 24 inches from each other. The middle detector

pair will have a second lamp of a different color. The player will stand or sit at a distance of 8 feet

or more from the wall. A laser pointer will be used to play the game. Whenever game is complete

or whenever it is time to start a new game, the middle lamp that is a different color will be lit. The

player will start the game by shining the laser at any of the 9 photo detectors. A random sequence

of lamps will then be lit and the reaction time to “shoot” the light sensor adjacent to the lamp that

is lit will be measured. After the target is hit, the lamp will go off. This will be repeated 8 times.

After the 8th lamp goes off, the game is over and the total reaction time is to be displayed on a 7

segment display in seconds. Once the reaction time is displayed, the game should be restarted. The

reaction time of the previous player should remain on the display until the following player

completes playing the game. If the components you need are not available in the electronics parts

shop, you will need to order the early enough to complete the design.

Project 9 Power and Power Factor Meter There is often considerable interest in knowing the relationship between real power, reactive

power, and power factor. Unfortunately low-cost power factor meters are not readily available.

In this project, you are to design a circuit that serves as a power factor meter and that can be used

to easily calculate the power. Assume you have an input voltage signal that is either single-phase

or three phase that varies between 100VRMS and 450VRMS. You may specify an existing clamp-

on current sensing coil that provides an analog output waveform that is proportional to current.

Design a circuit that will provide on the output both the power factor and the RMS voltage. The

power factor resolution should be 0.05 for power factors of between -1 and 1. The RMS voltage

should have a resolution of 10V over the specified range. The user should select one of 4 modes.

Single phase, Single phase complimentary, 3-phase Y, and 3-phase ∆. The output should be

displayed on a 4-digit 7-segment display. You must specify the display that you will be driving.

The output may alternate between PF and RMS voltage with a push-button selection.

Project 10 Traffic Volume and Velocity Monitor Traffic is regularly monitored on roadways to assess the level of usage and the stress placed on the

roadway. Three factors are of primary interest, specifically weight, traffic volume, and speed. The

pneumatic road tube sensor (PRTS) is often used as a sensor for obtaining traffic volume and speed

data. The PRTS is placed across one lane of traffic. Sensing traffic volume with a PRTS is

complicated by the observation that some vehicles have two axles (car, motorcycle, and some

trucks) whereas other vehicles have 5 or more axels. Also, the wheel base varies from one vehicle

to another. Use of the PRTS is complicated a bit more by the observation that occasionally two

vehicles have a very small spatial separation. In this project, you are to design a Traffic Volume

and Velocity Sensor integrated circuit that serves as a controller for the velocity and volume

measurements. Two PRTS sensors should serve as inputs along with a reset button. You may

specify the distance between the PTRS sensors. The controller should drive a 4-digit 7-segment

display. A mode select input should be provided that will allow assessment of the following:

Mode 1 Total number of vehicles since last reset

Mode 2 Elapsed time since last reset

Mode 3 Average velocity of all vehicles since last reset

Mode 4 Maximum velocity of any vehicle since last reset

Mode 5 Number of automobiles

Mode 6 Number of motorcycles

Mode 7 Number of “Semi” trucks

You may specify how the user enters the mode select but some indicator of which mode is

being displayed should be provided. You should specify a commercial 7-segment display that

will be driven directly by the integrated circuit. You must make a clear statement on assumptions

that are made on how to detect different classes of vehicles.

Project 11: Automatic room light controller with a visitor counter

Description:

Wastage of electricity is a serious problem nowadays. In our classes and office, we see that lights

and fan are kept on even if there is nobody in the room. This happens due to people forgot to turn

their off when leaving the room. There are two major parts for this project. The first part is Visitor

Counter. The Visitor Counter is used to measure the number of people in the room. Assume a

light curtain is placed across the door at waist height to measure when people enter the room. The

output of the light curtain is a Boolean high signal when the light curtain has a blockage and a

Boolean low when there is no blockage. This type of sensor works quite well if people agree to

walk through the door at a fixed velocity without waving their hands too much and agree to provide

a reasonable spacing between two individuals but can give errors when those entering or leaving

act somewhat irregularly. You should identify and describe a reasonable criteria for identifying

whether a person enters or leaves the room with a goal of determining the correct number of people

in the room most of the time. A second input will be from a motion detector. If the motion

detector detects no movement in the room for over 3 minutes, it will reset the number of people in

the room counter to 0. This will help minimize accumulative errors. The number of people in the

room should be displayed on a 4-digit 7-segment display. You should specify which commercial

display device that the circuit will drive. The controller should also have a light control. When

there are no people in the room, as determined by the motion detector, the light should be off. A

delay of 30 seconds should be made from the last detectable motion in the room until the lights

turn off. Anyone interrupting the light curtain or any detected motion should always turn the light

back on. The output of the light controller should control a triac. Specify the triac that will be

used so that the output of your circuit can be directly connected to the gate trigger terminal of the

triac. The load driven by the triac must be at least 500W at 120V RMS.

Project 12 Self-Defined

This project will be personalized to the individual interests of the student. All proposals for the self-defined projects should be approved by the course instructor.