Teledyne PC-AT 200 User Manual

Active Extenders

MODELS PC/AT150 & PC/AT200

Hot Swap PC/AT Bus Extender Boards

User Manual

Revision 8.1

March 30, 1999

Catalyst

Enterprises, Inc.

1439 Torrington Court

San Jose, CA 95120

[phone]

Fax: [phone]

Email [e-mail]

© 1996-1997

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

INSTALLATION

OPERATION

ON-OFF 2
POWER-ON RESET 2
BANK SWITCHES 2
CURRENT MEASUREMENT 3
CURRENT LIMIT CIRCUITRY 3
EXTERNAL POWER SUPPLY 3

AUXILIARY OUTPUT VOLTAGES
SOFTWARE COMMANDS 5
SOFTWARE EXAMPLES 6

AUXILIARY PINOUT

HEADERS 7
ADDITIONAL JUMPERS 8
JP 6 PINOUT 8

MODEL PC/AT200

1

1

4

8

SPECIFICATIONS

9

1

INTRODUCTION

These Active Extenders allow insertion or removal of the UUT into any PC/AT
bus without having to turn the system Off and On. This feature eliminates
repeated system power cycling and rebooting. Therefore speeds up rework,
characterization and test of UUT in the development phase as well as production
testing. The elimination of the repeated power cycling also helps prolonging
the system life and the hard disc operation. These Active Extenders use a new
CMOS technology for switching the signals on and off. These switches have a
very fast propagation delay, typically about 250 picoseconds, resulting in no
timing degradation between the bus and the UUT. The switches are also
bidirectional allowing the entire address range to be supported without any
jumper setting or running a background software to use the board.

These Active Extender boards isolate all signals and voltages to the UUT
when the On-Off switch is in the Off position. All voltages are ramped down
and ramped up during the power down and power up to eliminate any spikes.
During the power down the signals to the bus become isolated as soon as the
main supply, +5V, reaches down to +3.7V and during the power up the signals
stay isolated until the main voltage is at least +3.7V.

These Active Extenders also allow voltage margin testing of the UUT by
allowing external power supplies to replace the bus supplies as the inputs to
the UUT.

An on-board current-to-voltage converter for the main supply, +5V, allows
current measurement of the +5V at any time, using just a voltmeter at the J5
test points. The maximum current draw for the +5V supply is set to 5 Amp at
the
factory.

INSTALLATION

To install the Active Extender, make sure to turn the PC power off. Insert
the Active Extender in any available slot and secure it's bracket to the main
chassis. You are now ready to use your new extender board.

NOTE: If you are planning to use software to control the board, the On-Off

switch must be in the Off position and the dip switches must be in the OPEN
position, otherwise, all of the switches on the dip switch must be in the
CLOSED
position.

NOTE: The software command is disabled at the factory by not having the
JP16 installed. To enable the software command operation please install JP16.

2

OPERATION

Using these Active Extender boards is no different than using a regular
extender board. However, the extra features that these boards have to offer,
are explained below:

ON-OFF

To insert or remove any UUT into and out of the Active Extender, make
sure that the Active Extender is turned Off, if the PC power is to stay
on. There are three ways to turn the Active Extender power On and Off.

1) The mechanical toggle switch. 2) External control signal connected to
JP8. 3) By software commands (see details in that section).

External control can be used if remote controlling is desired for turning
the power On and Off. Leave the mechanical switch in the Off position,
then use a CMOS or TTL level signal to control turning the power On, via
JP8. The left connector of JP8 is ground and the right connector is the
control signal. A Low level, less than 1.5V will turn the switch On.

When the power is turned Off, +5V to the UUT becomes less than 3.7V, all
signals become isolated between the bus and the UUT.

NOTE: If you are running software that relies on a response from the
UUT, do not turn Off the Active Extender board, unless the handshaking
has taken place. Otherwise you may experience a system hang-up. It may
be a good practice to stop the software from running, before isolating
the power and the signals to the UUT.

POWER-ON RESET

Each time the Active Extender board is turned Off and then On, a reset
signal will be generated from the extender to the UUT automatically. The
duration of this reset is about 180 milliseconds. The reset to the UUT
is also activated every time there is a reset from the bus.

BANK SWITCHES

In a normal operation, the bank switches should be left in the closed
position. In this case when the power to the extender is turned On, all
of the bus signals will be active to and from the UUT. However, when
there is a problem with the signals from the UUT, the signals can be
activated in a smaller group. The bank switch 1 (switch closest to the
Red LED D2) controls U1 (bus signals A1-A10), bank switch 2 (second
switch closest to the RED LED D2) controls U2 (bus signals A11-A20).
Therefore bank switches 1-5 control signals on the A side and the bank
switches 6-10 control the signals on the B side. Switch numbers 1-10
correspond on a one-to-one to U1 - U10.