Calculated Waveforms for Tunnel Diode Locked Pair

An introductory analysis of the tunnel diode locked-pair circuit is presented. The characteristics of the tunnel diode, together with the simplicity of the locked-pair circuit, make it a major contender for use as a high speed computer element. High speed and high gain are the main advantages of the locked-pairs; the three-phase power supply and lack of a simple means for logical inversion are its main disadvantages. The basic circuit consists of two tunnel diodes in series, the node common to the tunnel diodes being both the input and output terminal. As a computer element, the locked-pair functions in much the same manner as the phase-locking harmonic oscillator (PLO). Like the PLO, the locked pair overcomes the difficulty of coincident input and output terminals by using a three-phase voltage source. The feasibility of using a digital computer to solve nonlinear circuit problems is also demonstrated. A digital computer makes possisible an exact solution by doing away with relatively ineffectual linear approximation techniques. Furthermore, the stray parameters associated with laboratory work at high frequencies are excluded, thereby disclosing the true nature of the circuit.