ECX4233 - Session 04 – Integrated Telephone Circuits

Session 04
Integrated Telephone circuits

Contents
4.1 Electronic speech circuits
4.2 Electronic dialer
4.2.1 Pulse dialling using integrated circuits
4.2.2 DTMF dialing using integrated circuits
4.2.3 Combined diallers
4.3 Electronic ringer
4.4 Complete Integrated telephones

Aim
This lesson introduces the student to understand about the modern electronic
telephone instruments.

Objectives
You will be able to identify
(1) The function and the operation of ICs of electronic speech circuits
(2) The function and the operation of ICs of electronic dialling circuits
(3) The function and the operation of ICs of electronic ringing circuits
(4) The functions and the operation of single chip integrated telephones

Introduction
With the evolution of the technology, the conventional electrical and mechanical
devices used in telephone instruments have been replaced by electronic devices,
usually in the form of integrated circuits. In this session you may learn the details
of integrated circuits which are used for different functions in telephony.

4.1 Electronic speech circuits

You may remember that in sessions 2 and 3 we learned about different parts of the
subscriber’s telephone instrument. Unlike in the conventional telephone
instruments, now we can get Integrated Circuits (IC) for a complete speech circuit
which contains transmitter, receiver, side tone circuit, dc regulator and an
automatic gain controller (AGC) circuit. Advantages of using these ICs include
high performance, low power consumption, small size, light weight and high

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ECX4233 - Session 04 – Integrated Telephone Circuits

reliability. Fig. 4.1 gives a block diagram of speech section of a electronic

telephone set.

Fig. 4.1 : The block diagram of a speech section of a telephone set

The speech circuit operates entirely from the current provided by the local loop. An
over voltage protection circuit is used to protect the electronic circuits from high-
voltage spikes on the line. Usually one or more zener diodes are placed across the
line to provide over voltage protection.
As the electronic circuits do not operate when the polarity of the normal input
voltage is changed and sometimes this may cause damage to the circuits. To
prevent from that a polarity protection circuit is used. The commonly used polarity
protection method is the use of a rectifier bridge.
Motorola MC34114 is an example IC for a telephone speech circuit. You can see
the basic speech circuit of MC34114 in the Fig. 4.2.

Fig. 4.2 : MC34114 - Basic speech circuit

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 ECX4233 - Session 04 – Integrated Telephone Circuits

This IC has the following features:

• Offers built-in transmit, receive and sidetone circuits as well as a dc
regulator and an AGC circuit.
• It is connected to the local loop by a conventional rectifier bridge.
• External components are used to adjust transmit, receive, sidetone gains.
• MC34114 can be used with a high-impedance electret microphone.
• MC34114 will operate properly with an input voltage of +1.2 V.
• A mute input is provided to reduce the level of dialling pulses or tones
reaching the receiver.
• The loop compensation sets the dc voltage across the local loop and
controls the characteristics of the speech network.
• An interface to the dialler circuit is provided to connect a dialler IC.

Activity: Find data sheets of MC34114 and some other available speech circuits
to learn their functions, features and operations.

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ECX4233 - Session 04 – Integrated Telephone Circuits

4.2 Electronic Dialler

4.2.1 Pulse dialling using integrated circuits

You may remember that there are 2 types dialling used in telephones. First one is
the pulse dialling which we get in mechanical rotary dial telephones. The rotary
dialler itself has been replaced with an integrated circuit called impulse dialler. In
modern telephones there is a “pulse/tone” switch to allow the selection between
pulse or tone. As in the mechanical rotary dial this impulse circuit generate pulses
by interrupting the line current a number of times equal to the number dialled. This
is called loop disconnect dialling. The normal interruption rate is 10 pulses per
second (pps). Muting, that is shorting out the handset receiver so that the dial
pulses are not heard by the caller, is also a function of the electronic impulse
dialler. Figure 4.3 shows the main parts of a pulse dialling integrated circuit.

Fig. 4.3: Pulse dialler integrated circuit

This pulse dialler can be connected with the speech network in 2 different ways: in
parallel or in series.
When it is connected in parallel with the speech network, the pulse dialler provides
an output which interrupts the loop current the required number of times. At the
same time the speech network is disabled and this makes the receiver to be muted.
When it is connected in series, the output of the pulse dialler interrupts the loop
current the required number of times and this interrupted current also flows through
the speech network. Now no current flows through the receiver as the receiver
circuit is open.

4.2.2 DTMF dialling using integrated circuits

Modern DTMF circuits are produced with integrated circuits (IC) instead of
discrete oscillator circuit.

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ECX4233 - Session 04 – Integrated Telephone Circuits

The integrated circuit DTMF generator (refer fig. 4.4) has a counter and decoder
that counts pulses from a crystal-controlled oscillator and provides output codes
that correspond to the low-frequency tone required and the high-frequency tone
required. Each of the two outputs from the counter feeds into its own digital-to-
analog (D/A) converter. The D/A converter, as the name implies, converts the
digital code out of the counter to a sine-wave tone. The low-frequency tone and the
high-frequency tone are summed in an operational amplifier and are fed to the
speech network as a combined signal by the output stage.

Fig. 4.4 : Integrated circuit of a DTMF generator

TCM5087 (MK5087) is an example IC for a DTMF dialer.

Activity
Search the internet to find ICs for DTMF dialing and go through their data sheets
to understand their functions and operations.

4.2.3 Combined Diallers

As mentioned in section 4.2.1 pulse dialler and DTMF diallers can be combined
into one device and dialling modes are selected using a switch.

4.3 Electronic ringer

The ringer circuits in the modern telephones have the same basic idea as the
conventional electromagnetic bell, but the coil controlled bell is replaced by
modern electronic ringing chip and small speaker. Electronic ringers are smaller
and lighter than conventional bells and also they have controllable pitch and
volume.
Electronic ringers may be either single tone or multi tone.
Multi tone ringers are more complex than the single tone ringers. But with modern
integrated circuits component count can be made to be less than single tone ringers.
The output signal of the multi tone ringer is produced by switching between two or

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ECX4233 - Session 04 – Integrated Telephone Circuits

more frequencies at a rate determined by the tone ringer circuitry. Unlike in single
tone ringers, for the multi tone ringer the only function of the ac ringing voltage is
to supply power to the unit.
The functional block diagram of a multi-tone ringing system is given below.

Fig. 4.5
The ac ringing voltage is rectified to obtain the d.c. power to the circuit and it is
then held constant by the voltage regulator. The a.c. voltage at the input may vary
depending on how far the telephone is from the exchange. Therefore voltage
regulation is necessary to make the voltage applied to the tone generation circuit to
be independent of the loop length.
Anti-tinkle circuit is used to avoid the telephone ringing during dialling by
suppressing the spiked dial pulses going to the ringer. The ac ringing voltage input
is approximately sinusoidal within a frequency range 16 – 60 Hz but the pulses
applied to the ringer during dialling are high voltage pulses up to 200V at a 10Hz
frequency.
Tone generation can be done by several methods in multi- tone ringing. The most
common circuit produces two tones while more than 2 tones can be generated
using ICs.
Output drivers are used to match the transducer impedance to the circuit

4.3 Complete integrated telephone

Integrated circuit dialling, ringing and speech functions can be combined to form a
complete, solid state telephone. This provides different features such as multi tone
ringing, pulse or tone dialling with memory and redial etc. An example IC of a
single chip telephone circuit is MC34010.

Activity
Search the internet to find ICs of complete telephone circuits and go through their
data sheets to understand the functions and operations.