RESEARCH AND TEACHING OF DIGITALLY PROGRAMMABLE OSCILLATORS WITH MODELING IN THE TINA-TI ENVIRONMENT AND THE APPLICATION OF OPEN SOURCE PLATFORMS

The article presents the use of Toolkit for Interactive Network Analysis (TINA-TI) educational simulation software and the Arduino open source electronic prototype platform to teach and analyze the Digitally Programmable Oscillators as a part of the Electronic Circuits courses in universities.

It is known for the Digitally Programmable Oscillators that the frequency of the output signal is controlled by a digital code. Their study and understanding by students is essential as they are used in phase-locked loop (PLL), measuring technique, test-based test, electronic circuitry research, etc.

Their simulation study is conducted with the student version of the Toolkit for Interactive Network Analysis. It is designed to study electronic circuits through simulation and analysis. TINA - TI is a DesignSoft product for Texas Instruments and is fully functional but does not support some features that ate available in the full version of TINA. However, it is convenient for use, as there are minimal hardware and software requirements.

The modeling of the Digitally Programmable Oscillators in the TINA-TI environment is done in three stages: creating a schematic diagram in the schematic editor; simulating the work of Digitally Programmable Oscillators by real-time testing with virtual instruments; presenting and analyzing the obtained results.

The computer model of the Digitally Programmable Oscillator provides an opportunity to explore oscillator's parameters so that students get a real interactive experience.

The open-source Arduino open source platform and the Texas Instruments Analog System Lab Kit PRO (ASLK PRO) kit are being used in order to conduct a research about the digital programmable oscillators.

The combination of simulation procedures conducted by SPICE based software TINA-TI with physical experiments with Arduino and Analog System Lab Kit PRO aims to build interactively understanding of the operation of digitally programmable oscillators and the study of their basic parameters.

The innovative approaches of teaching have as an objective giving sustainable knowledge to learners so that they can have a successful career development.