• Chip for fast pulses

    From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 17 17:47:04 2025
    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it
    comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard
    or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,

    CD

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  • From Uwe Bonnes@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Fri Jan 17 20:38:58 2025
    Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com> wrote:
    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it
    comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard
    or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,


    Maybe https://www.ichaus.de/product/ic-hs-series/ can be used for that?
    --
    Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

    Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt
    --------- Tel. 06151 1623569 ------- Fax. 06151 1623305 ---------

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 17 14:26:46 2025
    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:47:04 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
    wrote:

    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it
    comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard
    or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,

    CD

    50 ps edges are pretty fast. I tell people that 1 ns starts to be
    interesting and 100 ps starts to be hard.

    Some CMOS parts make 200 ps edges.

    Eclips Lite (EL series) and GigaComm (NB7) are fast ECL logic
    families. Some Giga parts have 35 ps rise and fall, but tiny swings.

    There are some interesting laser drivers around, like the SY88022.

    There were some really fast Russian parts but I don't know if they
    still can be had.

    Step-recovery diodes and NLTLs (shock lines) make the fastest
    all-electrical pulses. Laser stuff gets truly fast, fs and as optical
    pulses.

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  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 17 22:43:20 2025
    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 14:26:46 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
    wrote:

    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:47:04 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
    wrote:

    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it >>comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard
    or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,

    CD

    50 ps edges are pretty fast. I tell people that 1 ns starts to be
    interesting and 100 ps starts to be hard.

    Some CMOS parts make 200 ps edges.

    Eclips Lite (EL series) and GigaComm (NB7) are fast ECL logic
    families. Some Giga parts have 35 ps rise and fall, but tiny swings.

    There are some interesting laser drivers around, like the SY88022.

    There were some really fast Russian parts but I don't know if they
    still can be had.

    Step-recovery diodes and NLTLs (shock lines) make the fastest
    all-electrical pulses. Laser stuff gets truly fast, fs and as optical
    pulses.

    Interesting. I'm seeing a *lot* of adverts on Ebay currently for
    "optical TDRs" which must be challenging to produce (to my VHF mindset
    anyway). So yeah, I'm perfectly certain SRDs would be more than
    adequate for anything I wanted to do. NLTLs I'm not familiar with so
    gonna have to look 'em up.

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  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Sat Jan 18 00:00:38 2025
    On Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:23:18 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 1/17/25 23:43, Cursitor Doom wrote:
    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 14:26:46 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
    wrote:

    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:47:04 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
    wrote:

    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it >>>> comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard >>>> or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,

    CD

    50 ps edges are pretty fast. I tell people that 1 ns starts to be
    interesting and 100 ps starts to be hard.

    Some CMOS parts make 200 ps edges.

    Eclips Lite (EL series) and GigaComm (NB7) are fast ECL logic
    families. Some Giga parts have 35 ps rise and fall, but tiny swings.

    There are some interesting laser drivers around, like the SY88022.

    There were some really fast Russian parts but I don't know if they
    still can be had.

    Step-recovery diodes and NLTLs (shock lines) make the fastest
    all-electrical pulses. Laser stuff gets truly fast, fs and as optical
    pulses.

    Interesting. I'm seeing a *lot* of adverts on Ebay currently for
    "optical TDRs" which must be challenging to produce (to my VHF mindset
    anyway). So yeah, I'm perfectly certain SRDs would be more than
    adequate for anything I wanted to do. NLTLs I'm not familiar with so
    gonna have to look 'em up.

    Optical TDRs have VHF bandwidths. It's the /modulation/ they show.
    They certainly don't have the 600-odd THz bandwidth you seem to imply.

    Jeroen Belleman
    not


    Ah - well that would explain a great deal! Thanks.

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  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Sat Jan 18 00:23:18 2025
    On 1/17/25 23:43, Cursitor Doom wrote:
    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 14:26:46 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
    wrote:

    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:47:04 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
    wrote:

    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it
    comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard
    or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,

    CD

    50 ps edges are pretty fast. I tell people that 1 ns starts to be
    interesting and 100 ps starts to be hard.

    Some CMOS parts make 200 ps edges.

    Eclips Lite (EL series) and GigaComm (NB7) are fast ECL logic
    families. Some Giga parts have 35 ps rise and fall, but tiny swings.

    There are some interesting laser drivers around, like the SY88022.

    There were some really fast Russian parts but I don't know if they
    still can be had.

    Step-recovery diodes and NLTLs (shock lines) make the fastest
    all-electrical pulses. Laser stuff gets truly fast, fs and as optical
    pulses.

    Interesting. I'm seeing a *lot* of adverts on Ebay currently for
    "optical TDRs" which must be challenging to produce (to my VHF mindset anyway). So yeah, I'm perfectly certain SRDs would be more than
    adequate for anything I wanted to do. NLTLs I'm not familiar with so
    gonna have to look 'em up.

    Optical TDRs have VHF bandwidths. It's the /modulation/ they show.
    They certainly don't have the 600-odd THz bandwidth you seem to imply.

    Jeroen Belleman
    not

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Sat Jan 18 10:50:22 2025
    On Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:23:18 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 1/17/25 23:43, Cursitor Doom wrote:
    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 14:26:46 -0800, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
    wrote:

    On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:47:04 +0000, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
    wrote:

    Gentlemen,

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times? I admit to being like 40 years behind when it >>>> comes to what ICs can do (and proud of it!) Would 50pS cut the mustard >>>> or is that dog-doo slow nowadays?

    Thanks,

    CD

    50 ps edges are pretty fast. I tell people that 1 ns starts to be
    interesting and 100 ps starts to be hard.

    Some CMOS parts make 200 ps edges.

    Eclips Lite (EL series) and GigaComm (NB7) are fast ECL logic
    families. Some Giga parts have 35 ps rise and fall, but tiny swings.

    There are some interesting laser drivers around, like the SY88022.

    There were some really fast Russian parts but I don't know if they
    still can be had.

    Step-recovery diodes and NLTLs (shock lines) make the fastest
    all-electrical pulses. Laser stuff gets truly fast, fs and as optical
    pulses.

    Interesting. I'm seeing a *lot* of adverts on Ebay currently for
    "optical TDRs" which must be challenging to produce (to my VHF mindset
    anyway). So yeah, I'm perfectly certain SRDs would be more than
    adequate for anything I wanted to do. NLTLs I'm not familiar with so
    gonna have to look 'em up.

    Optical TDRs have VHF bandwidths. It's the /modulation/ they show.
    They certainly don't have the 600-odd THz bandwidth you seem to imply.

    Jeroen Belleman
    not

    Some cheap gain-switched laser diodes can make picosecond pulses with
    simple, slow drivers. One can launch that down a fiber and use a fast photodiode to look for reflections.

    Or just pulse a ld for a few ns, to get meter-range resolution.

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jan 18 13:19:08 2025
    On Sat, 18 Jan 2025 22:00:43 +0100, Davide Gerhard <rainbow@irh.it>
    wrote:

    On venerdì, 17/01/2025 17:47 GMT, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com> wrote...

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times?

    The most used IC in that application is the MAX3949 [1] but I also saw
    the SY88022AL [2].


    [1] https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/MAX3949.pdf
    [2] https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/SY88022AL.pdf

    We use the SY part to generate fiducial pulses in a biggish laser
    modulator. What's cool is that it has a diff ecl/cml input, diff high
    current outputs, and you can smoothly adjust the output amplitude from
    zero to max. And max is pretty big.

    And they only cost about $7.

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  • From Davide Gerhard@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jan 18 22:00:43 2025
    On venerdì, 17/01/2025 17:47 GMT, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com> wrote...

    What's available these days for generating well-defined pulses with
    really sharp rise times?

    The most used IC in that application is the MAX3949 [1] but I also saw
    the SY88022AL [2].


    [1] https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/MAX3949.pdf
    [2] https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/SY88022AL.pdf

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