Abstract: A continuous time electrical filter fabricated as an integrated circuit includes capacitors (CF,CN) and resistors (R1,R2). Since capacitors and resistors are difficult to integrate with accurately defined values, a trimming circuit is provided which operates switches (S1-SN) to select appropriate ones of the capacitors (CN) to accurately define the cut-off frequency of the filter. The trimming circuit comprises a capacitor (TC2) which is charged through a resistor TR1 during a first period and which is discharged in incremental steps by capacitor (TC1). The number of incremental steps is counted by a counter (11) and transferred to a register (13). The outputs (S1-SN) of the register (13) control the switches (S1-SN). Alternatively the values of the filter resistors may be adjusted, a convenient procedure being to short out selected portions of the resistors. More than one capacitor or resistor may be adjusted using a single counter and register.

Abstract: A semiconductor circuit supplies a substrate back bias voltage that is feedback controlled as a function of the sum of the positive threshold voltage of one field-effect transistor (FET) and the negative threshold voltage of a second FET. Preferably, one of the FET's is an enhancement-mode device, and the other is a like-polarity depletion-mode device. This arrangement enables the bias voltage to vary from chip to chip in such a manner as to speed up the logic gates on a chip containing the slowest gates and to slow down the logic gates on a chip containing the fastest logic gates, thereby decreasing the chip-to-chip spread in gate propagation delay and average power dissipation. The worst-case noise margin increases slightly.

Abstract: A digital signal transmission system in which a pulse code modulated (PCM) signal is retimed in a regenerator using a decision circuit supplied by a clock, the frequency of which is half that of the bit rate (typically 1 Gigabit/second), and is demultiplexed using multiplexers clocked at a frequency half that of the bit rate. In each case the clock frequency is derived from the data stream using a clock extractor. A voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) generating a signal at substantially half the bit rate is connected to one input of a phase detector to another input of which is connected to receive current pulses representing transitions in the incoming data signal. The phase detector comprises first, second and third pairs of long tailed-pair connected transistors, the collectors of the transistors of the first pair of being connected respectively to the common connected transistors of second and third pairs.

Abstract: A high frequency divider arrangement for use in transmission systems operating in the gigabit/second range. Known divider arrangements based on ECL logic families have an upper frequency limit which is too low for dividing signals in the gigabit/second range. In one embodiment the inputs of a high frequency multiplexer are connected respectively to the stages of a feedback shift register which produces a sequence of five code words which are serialized by a multiplexer. The bits in the serialized code words occur in blocks which define a mark/space ratio of the output signal which has a frequency of 2/5ths of the clock frequency applied to the multiplexer. By means of additional circuitry, for example D-type flip-flops, the output from the multiplexer can be divided further. The code word(s) applied to the multiplexer can be held static, changed each time the inputs of the multiplexer have been scanned, or held temporarily static for a predetermined number of scans and then changed.