element14 Community
element14 Community
    Register Log In
  • Site
  • Search
  • Log In Register
  • Community Hub
    Community Hub
    • What's New on element14
    • Feedback and Support
    • Benefits of Membership
    • Personal Blogs
    • Members Area
    • Achievement Levels
  • Learn
    Learn
    • Ask an Expert
    • eBooks
    • element14 presents
    • Learning Center
    • Tech Spotlight
    • STEM Academy
    • Webinars, Training and Events
    • Learning Groups
  • Technologies
    Technologies
    • 3D Printing
    • FPGA
    • Industrial Automation
    • Internet of Things
    • Power & Energy
    • Sensors
    • Technology Groups
  • Challenges & Projects
    Challenges & Projects
    • Design Challenges
    • element14 presents Projects
    • Project14
    • Arduino Projects
    • Raspberry Pi Projects
    • Project Groups
  • Products
    Products
    • Arduino
    • Avnet & Tria Boards Community
    • Dev Tools
    • Manufacturers
    • Multicomp Pro
    • Product Groups
    • Raspberry Pi
    • RoadTests & Reviews
  • About Us
    About the element14 Community
  • Store
    Store
    • Visit Your Store
    • Choose another store...
      • Europe
      •  Austria (German)
      •  Belgium (Dutch, French)
      •  Bulgaria (Bulgarian)
      •  Czech Republic (Czech)
      •  Denmark (Danish)
      •  Estonia (Estonian)
      •  Finland (Finnish)
      •  France (French)
      •  Germany (German)
      •  Hungary (Hungarian)
      •  Ireland
      •  Israel
      •  Italy (Italian)
      •  Latvia (Latvian)
      •  
      •  Lithuania (Lithuanian)
      •  Netherlands (Dutch)
      •  Norway (Norwegian)
      •  Poland (Polish)
      •  Portugal (Portuguese)
      •  Romania (Romanian)
      •  Russia (Russian)
      •  Slovakia (Slovak)
      •  Slovenia (Slovenian)
      •  Spain (Spanish)
      •  Sweden (Swedish)
      •  Switzerland(German, French)
      •  Turkey (Turkish)
      •  United Kingdom
      • Asia Pacific
      •  Australia
      •  China
      •  Hong Kong
      •  India
      •  Japan
      •  Korea (Korean)
      •  Malaysia
      •  New Zealand
      •  Philippines
      •  Singapore
      •  Taiwan
      •  Thailand (Thai)
      •  Vietnam
      • Americas
      •  Brazil (Portuguese)
      •  Canada
      •  Mexico (Spanish)
      •  United States
      Can't find the country/region you're looking for? Visit our export site or find a local distributor.
  • Translate
  • Profile
  • Settings
Personal Blogs
  • Community Hub
  • More
Personal Blogs
Ralph Yamamoto's Blog Signetics NE564N PLL - Brings back memories
  • Blog
  • Documents
  • Mentions
  • Sub-Groups
  • Tags
  • More
  • Cancel
  • New
  • Share
  • More
  • Cancel
Group Actions
  • Group RSS
  • More
  • Cancel
Engagement
  • Author Author: ralphjy
  • Date Created: 24 Feb 2021 7:56 PM Date Created
  • Views 292 views
  • Likes 7 likes
  • Comments 0 comments
  • tsunami early warning system
  • pll
  • ne564
Related
Recommended

Signetics NE564N PLL - Brings back memories

ralphjy
ralphjy
24 Feb 2021

I recently saw that Electronic Goldmine is selling new old stock of Signetics NE564N PLL ICs https://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/G25530 .

 

This brought back memories of my early career in electronics working at the University of Hawaii from 1971-1973. That was a period of time when integrated circuits were just becoming more common and most everything was bipolar.  FETs were only available as discretes and were quite costly, so we didn't use them.  Motorola introduced their high speed digital ECL (MECL) logic circuits and Intel introduced their 4004 and 8008 microprocessors.  On the analog front we were happy to finally get the internally compensated 741 op amps. 

 

That was when I first encountered the Signetics family of phase lock loop ICs which integrated the VCO, phase detector, low pass filter and amplifier.  I was quite amazed at the functionality they were able to pack into an integrated circuit.  They had two product lines the 560, 561, 562 for frequencies up to 30 MHz and and the 565, 566, 567 for frequencies up to 500KHz.  The designs were very nicely implemented.  The 560-562 parts all used the same silicon die, but achieved feature differentiation by using different metallization interconnects.

 

Our lab was working on a feasibility study for a tsunami early warning system.  We were trying to correlate Rayleigh waves generated by seismic activity with vertical displacement of the ionosphere.  We measured the ionospheric movement by determining the Doppler shift of the 10 MHz time reference signal from WWVH that was reflected off the ionospheric layer.  I used the phase detector of the 560 which was basically a double balanced mixer to extract the Doppler shift by beating the received signal against a temperature stabilized reference oscillator.

image

The circuit worked really well, but unfortunately I lost all of my project documentation due to water damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Southern California - somewhat ironic.....

 

Anyway, I was interested to discover that this type of research is still being conducted almost 50 years later - albeit with much better technology.

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/warnings-from-the-ionosphere

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-19305-1

 

The NE564 is a later version of the NE560.  It is spec'ed to run up to 50 MHz.  I'm not sure when it was released, but the date code on the Goldmine part is 1983.

image

 

I decided for old times sake, I needed to buy a few.  Maybe make a more conventional PLL project.

 

Here's the Block Diagram of the circuit:

image

 

It always amazes me to reflect on what we were able to accomplish way back eons ago.  And without the Internet image.

  • Sign in to reply
element14 Community

element14 is the first online community specifically for engineers. Connect with your peers and get expert answers to your questions.

  • Members
  • Learn
  • Technologies
  • Challenges & Projects
  • Products
  • Store
  • About Us
  • Feedback & Support
  • FAQs
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal and Copyright Notices
  • Sitemap
  • Cookies

An Avnet Company © 2026 Premier Farnell Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Premier Farnell Ltd, registered in England and Wales (no 00876412), registered office: Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds LS12 2NE.

ICP 备案号 10220084.

Follow element14

  • X
  • Facebook
  • linkedin
  • YouTube