Since 2004 on our forum we tried different approaches to balanced ternary electronics, including CMOS-switches 4016/4066, 4067, 4097, 4051, 4052, 4053 - the problem is that they require additional elements as optocouplers or comparators (check forum below - sorry it's automated translation from Russian to English):
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate
and optocouplers and comparators require a number of resistors around (and sometimes a few diodes to match logical levels for further use) - so result looks heavy...
Another problem is mostly "ideological" one, namely cheap CMOS switches are controlled by BINARY signals, that are created by comparators/optocouplers and digital people always may say "no, it's not real ternary, it's simply emulation of ternary by binary components"...
But last summer I came up with surprisingly simple design with DG403s:
- Two DG403 used as ternary multiplexers
- dg403b.jpg (54.99 KiB) Viewed 1714 times
As you can see these switches are controlled directly by TERNARY signals and this trick is possible because DG403 has separate power pins for logic part and analog part (for example it will not work for cheap CMOS switches because 4016/4066,4067,4097 have common power pins for logical and analog parts and 4051,4052,4053 have only separate ground for logic and common positive voltage)
So yes, TRIMUX is not most cheap way to try ternary and not very optimal (in terms of quantity of CMOS-transistors), but it's definitely most simple and quick way
P.P.S. More possible TRIMUX applications:
P.P.S. About emulation - we tried Logisim: http://www.ternary.info/modules/newbb/v ... 81&forum=5
