Introduction To Digital Pattern
A digital pattern is literally a sequential series of 0’s & 1’s. For example, 1001, 00110101 or even 00000000 is a digital pattern. Any number of sequential bits of digital data can be considered as digital pattern. Digital patterns will always come as packet with integer lengths. The size or length of the packet is generally a multiple of 8 e.g. 8-bit, 32-bit, 128 -bit etc. For example, 11000011 is an 8-bit digital pattern. Digital patterns can be generated with a Digital Pattern Generator.
Digital Pattern Generator
A digital Pattern Generator is a digital electronic test equipment that can generate digital patterns. These patterns act as digital stimulus or stimuli. Pattern generators are generally used to simulate any signal or series of signals that is going into the SUT/DUT (SUT – System Under Test, DUT – Device Under Test). As the name suggests, a digital pattern generator can generate signals that are digital in nature. The signals will always be a series of 1 & 0. A pattern generator will always conform to one or more standard of digital signaling standards. The pattern generator of Terminus follows the TTL standard (click this link to know about TTL).
A pattern generator requires the user to record the patterns before applying them. The user writes the patterns as per their requirements. Once triggered, the pattern generator presents these patterns on its output, one pattern at a time. The patterns are changed after a user defined interval.
Applications
A digital stimulus can be provided manually by connecting the input source of DUT/SUT to VCC or GND. A pattern generator is used in situations where there are multiple input sources. Several of the input sources may require changing at a time. It is impossible to manually change multiple input signals at a time. This is where a pattern generator comes in. A pattern generator is useful in situations where several input stimuli are changed repetitively at regular or irregular basis.
Some applications of a Digital Pattern Generator are shown below
– Simulation of digital input signals
– Generation of digital data Bus
– Digital electronics and embedded system testing and debugging
– Stimulation of digital signal processing hardware
– Digital-to-analog converter (DAC) stimulation
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