PRICOM Design - Product Design and Development

Innovations in Electronics

PIC-ISD Sound Development Module

This module is especially suited for battery-operated toy development. With it's integrated sound record and playback chip (ISD5116), it can play sounds based on switch or sensor input. With the on-board tip/tilt sensor, the board can be programmed to say or play different sounds depending on the orientation of the module.

The PIC Processor can be a 5V (F) or 3V (LF) version to allow lower power consumption. In order to accommodate the 3V sound chip, and a 3V or 5V processor, 2 separate LDO voltage regulators are placed on the back of the module.

The PIC Processor is programmed and debugged using a 6 pin 2MM header. This header enables a Microchip ICD-2 debugger/emulator to be connected to allow ICE (In Circuit Emulation) and programming.

A second 6 pin 2MM header is used to control/program the ISD5116 Sound chip. The most interesting thing about this particular sound chip is that it uses I2C 2-wire control instead of the 'old' parallel method of previous ISD chips. The 2MM header allows direct control of the ISD Sound chip while the local processor is held in reset. The advantage is that the local processor can contain 'playback-only' code, and use a second of these modules as the 'programmer/recorder' unit.

The board contains a tip/tilt array made by Alps which is basically 4 pins with a metal washer inside. The result is that 2 of the pins will be shorted together depending on the module orientation. The 4 pins are wired to 4 port pins of the PIC so that any de-bounce and scanning routine can be used to detect tilt, bounce, vibration, etc.

Every unused pin of the PIC processor is brought out to plated holes sized for 20-26 gauge wire. In addition to the I/O ports, Battery Supply, and Speaker outputs are available. These holes are available around the edge of the module, and allow direct soldering of LED's, as shown in the following example.

We can supply a 'special' unit with LED's pre-attached, and some sample code loaded into the PIC to make them show current status of the tip/tilt sensor. We can also supply a bare-board only, if you have the desire to assemble these things. The passive components are 0603, and are quite small, so be prepared!

Full Schematics and Data Sheets are supplied, with sample code written using the Microchip C Compiler.