Re:Bipolar-Zener Combo Takes On CMOS
by dreamcompiler on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @08:37AM
(#21333921)
The 4QM is one of the most useful analog devices in music synthesis, where absolute precision is unnecessary. There it's called a ring modulator because it emulates the sound of a bell. It produces both the sum and the difference of the two sinewaves fed into it.
Edit: Just looked up "ring modulator" on Wikipedia. It says the name comes from the ring of diodes in the canonical circuit. I'd always heard the genesis was from the bell-like sound it made. And there are better ways to build analog multipliers than four diodes in a circle.
Similar to diode balanced mixers in RF stuff.
Re:Bipolar-Zener Combo Takes On CMOS
by dreamcompiler on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @04:31PM
(#21338666)
Yep. It's a mixer in RF terminology. Or a heterodyne. Lots of names for this thing.
I did succeed in producing a four quadrant multiplier in the end but required some unholy things to be done.
That and noise and the cost of precision make it almost useless compared to a digital computer now. The rise of direct sampling SDRs confirms this. Crazy dynamic range, excellent noise floor and hardly any analogue up front.