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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF MICROCONTROLLER BASED DIGITAL LOGIC

GATE IC TESTER

Technical Report · April 2021

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36066.25288/1

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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF MICROCONTROLLER BASED
DIGITAL LOGIC GATE IC TESTER
A Report
Submitted By

CHIRAYU PRANAV DARJI

(EC12)
(18ECUOS052)

for the term project of

Semester-VI

Under the guidance of

Prof. Vasim Vohra

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY

DHARMSINH DESAI UNIVERSITY

NADIAD - 387001

MARCH 2021
 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the practical work carried out in the subject of TERM PROJECT and
recorded in this report is the bonafide work of Mr. CHIRAYU PRANAV DARJI, Roll number
EC12, Identity number 18ECUOS052 of B.TECH. Semester VI in the branch of
ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING during the academic year
2020-2021.

Faculty in Charge Head of the Department

(Prof. Vasim Vohra) (Dr. Nikhil J Kothari)

b
 ABSTRACT

In electronics, testing tool is a major part when it comes to laboratory work. It’s a part of everyday
activity to use one or several ICs while working on electronics systems. Digital IC tester is a
microcontroller-based circuitry that tests whether the IC is in good working condition or bad
condition. In industries, testing of the product is an expensive and time-consuming process. Before
making the whole system work, testing is mandatorily performed to avoid errors and undesired
results. Similarly, in educational institutions, while performing practical it is necessary to check
the IC whether it is good or bad before performing experiments. Many small faults at IC level
makes system perform inaccurately and produce wrong outputs. Thus, the aim of this research is
to build a Logic tester capable of testing most 74xx series logic gates integrated circuits using a
Microcontroller (AT89C52). This project is basically designed to test the condition of the gates in
a logic gate IC by simulating its characteristics using the truth table of the particular IC. Different
design approaches were compared and finally one approach was implemented. Each individual
module was designed separately. After successful simulation and testing, they were put together
to create the finalized version.

I
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
No.
ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………... I
TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………….. II
LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………... IV
LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………. V
ABBREVIATIONS ………………………………………………………… VI

CHAPTER 1 ………………………………………………………………... 1
INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………. 1
1.1 BACKGROUND …………………………………………………….. 1
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT …………………………………………... 1
1.3 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ………………………………….. 2
1.4 MOTIVATION FOR THE PROJECT ………………………………. 2
CHAPTER 2 ………………………………………………………………... 3
PROPOSED SYSTEM AND METHODOLOGY………………………... 3
2.1 THE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY ………………………………………. 3
2.2 SYSTEM OVERVIEW ……………………...………………………. 4
CHAPTER 3 ………………………………………………………………... 6
COMPONENT, APPARATUS AND SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION …. 6
3.1 AT89S52-MICROCONTROLLER ………………………………… 6
3.2 16x2 LCD ………..………………………………………………….. 8
3.3 4x3 KEYPAD ……..…………………………………………………. 8
3.4 ZIF SOCKET ………………………………………………………… 9
3.5 DC POWER SUPPLY ……………………………………………... 9

II
 3.6 RESISTOR ...………………………………………………………... 9
3.7 CAPACITOR ……………...…………………………………………. 10
3.8 KEIL µVISION ……………………………………………………… 10
3.9 PROTEUS VSM ……………………………………………………... 10
CHAPTER 4 ………………………………………………………………... 11
SYSTEM DESIGN AND SIMULATION…………………………………. 11
4.1 HOW THE CIRCUIT FUNCTIONS …………………….………… 11
4.2 SYSTEM DESIGN ………………………………………………… 12
4.3 SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION …………………… 14
CHAPTER 5 ………………………………………………………………... 16
PCB DESIGN AND HARDWARE REALIZATION ……………………. 16
5.1 PCB LAYOUT DESIGN …………………………………………...... 16
5.2 HARDWARE REALIZATION ……………………………………... 17
CHAPTER 6 ………………………………………………………………... 18
DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE ………………. 18
6.1 APPLICATIONS …………………………………………………….. 18
6.2 UTILITIES …………………………………………………………... 18
6.3 LIMITAIONS ………………………………………………………... 18
6.4 CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………... 29
6.5 FUTURE SCOPE ……………………………………………………. 29
REFERNCES ……………………………………………………………… 20
APPENDIX-I ………………………………………………………………. 21

III
 LIST OF FIGURES

Title Page No.

Fig. 2.1: Methodology to develop the IC tester …………………………………... 4

Fig. 2.2: Block diagram of digital IC tester ………………………………………. 5
Fig. 3.1: AT89S52 IC …………………………………..………………………… 7
Fig. 3.2: Pin diagram of AT89S52 …………….………………………………….. 7
Fig. 3.3: 16x2 LCD ………………………...……………………………………... 8
Fig. 3.4: 4x3 Keypad ……………………………………………………………... 8
Fig. 3.5: ZIF socket …………………..…………………………………………... 9
Fig. 3.6: Electrical symbol of resistor …………………………………………… 9
Fig. 3.7: Electrical schematic for capacitor ………...…………………………….. 10
Fig. 4.1: Truth Table for various logic gates ……………………………………... 11
Fig. 4.2: Circuit connection ………………………………………………………. 12
Fig. 4.3: Circuit diagram from proteus ..………………………………………….. 13
Fig. 4.4: Initialize message displayed on LCD …………………………………… 14
Fig. 4.5: List of ICs ……………………………………………………………….. 14
Fig. 4.6: Message displayed on selection of an IC ……………………………….. 14
Fig. 4.7: Message displayed on testing of an IC …………………..……………… 15
Fig. 4.8: Message displayed on testing of an IC …………………..……………… 15
Fig. 5.1: PCB layout design for the digital IC tester ……………………………... 16

IV
 LIST OF TABLES

TITLE Page No.

Table 3.1: Circuit components …………………………………………………… 6

V
 ABBREVIATIONS

IC Integrated Circuits
LED Light Emitting Diode
MCU Micro-controller Unit
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
TT Truth Table
ZIF Zero Insertion Force
PCB Printed Circuit Board
CCD Copper Clad Board
TTL Transistor-Transistor Logic
CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
DUT Device Under Test
DTL Diode Transistor Logic

VI
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

During my undergraduate study of Electronic Principles and Digital Electronics in semester 2 and
3 respectively, a need arose for digital integrated circuit tester. The reason for this was that many
times when I had trouble, I had no easy way of knowing whether wiring, design or one of the
integrated circuit was at fault. The work described here was undertaken to give students a simple
way of checking their ICs.
The IC tester simply determines which are workable gates and which are faulty. The main purpose
of the project is to develop a digital IC tester that is very less expensive and handy than that of
what are available in markets. The aim is to check the ICs in very due course of time and display
results of ICs being good or faulty immediately. The necessary input signal conditions are applied
to the inputs of the gate through microcontroller and output of each gate is monitored
and compared with the truth table and depending on that comparison IC is tested whether it is good
or faulty. The basic function of digital IC tester is to test the logic functioning of the ICs as
described in the truth table/function table. The truth tables are stored in database while coding of
the microcontroller. The test displays the good ICs and bad ICs on LCD. The test is being
accomplished with the ICs belonging to the basic logic gate IC series. There are many IC tester
available in market, varieties of choices are present for users. But we have developed a tester that
is economic, portable, easy to handle as well as reconfigurable.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

In general, it is the most important requirement of testing the ICs before using them for IC based
work. Faulty ICs gives us results that are inappropriate to work and unexpected. These wrong
outputs results lead in wrong evaluation and analysis. Time and resources are very important in
this developing era. And one cannot afford wasting so much of time and resources in finding silly

1
faults caused by faulty ICs. Thus, there is a need to develop a low cost and easy maintainable, user
friendly digital IC tester.

1.3 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Various studies and research has been carried out over microcontroller based IC tester design.
Some of the research works which inspired this project are mentioned below.
Fang Pang, T. Brandon, B. Cockburn and M. Hume, "A reconfigurable digital IC tester
implemented using the ARM Integrator rapid prototyping system," Canadian Conference on
Electrical and Computer Engineering 2004 (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37513), Niagara Falls, ON,
Canada, 2004, pp. 1931-1935 Vol.4, doi: 10.1109/CCECE.2004.1347590.
MD Pabiania, JT Peralta, LT De Luna, “Microcontroller Based Design of Digital IC Tester with
Multi-Testing and Loop Testing Functions”, IJAIM, 2014

1.4 MOTIVATION FOR THE PROJECT

In electronics, testing tool is a major part when it comes to laboratory work. It’s a part of everyday
activity to use one or several ICs while working on electronics systems. Digital IC tester is a
microcontroller-based circuitry that tests whether the IC is in good working condition or bad
condition. In industries, testing of the product is an expensive and time-consuming process. Before
making the whole system work, testing is mandatorily performed to avoid errors and undesired
results. Similarly, in educational institutions, while performing practical it is necessary to check
the IC whether it is good or bad before performing experiments. Many small faults at IC level
makes system perform inaccurately and produce wrong outputs.
Thus the focus of this project is to design an effective and economic Digital IC Tester, which
would cost less than Rs. 1000/-.

2
 CHAPTER 2

PROPOSED SYSTEM AND METHODOLOGY

2.1 THE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

In the early stage of design, it was decided the tester should be simple, versatile, fast, reliable,
economic and reconfigurable. A machine was desired that could reliably test most of the DTL,
TTL and CMOS technology based 74xx series digital logic gate integrated circuits, with an
immediate verdict appearing with the simple push of a button. A time deadline of 3 months was
set for the software simulation design, code development and hardware realization.
Different design approaches were compared and finally one approach was implemented. Each
individual module was designed separately. After successful simulation and testing, they were put
together to create the finalized version. Each individual module was designed separately. After
successful simulation and testing, they were put together to create the finalized version shown in
Fig. 2.1.
On starting the system, the system is automatically reset and an initializing message is
displayed on LCD like “Please enter IC number”. The ZIF socket is used to place the IC that is
to be tested. IC is placed in the socket and that IC number is entered through the keypad and is
also displayed on 16x2 LCD display. As IC number is entered, it is sent to the MCU where it
checks weather is good or bad based on database. If IC is good then a message “Good
IC” is displayed. And if IC is faulty, a message is displayed “Bad IC”.

3
 Start

Initialized
Message on LCD

Enter IC No.
from List

Send IC No. to
AT89C52

Check if IC is Display Faulty

Ok? NO on LCD

YES

Display Good
IC on LCD

Reset
Fig. 2.1 Methodology to develop IC tester

2.2 SYSTEM OVERVIEW

The Fig. 2.2, shows the block diagram of project. The first block is ZIF (Zero Insertion Force)
socket. This ZIF socket is used to connect to IC with the microcontroller. Pins of Port 1,2 are used
to interface the ZIF socket with the microcontroller. A 16x2 LCD is used to display the
information.

4
 DC Power
Supply

Microcontroller
ZIF Socket 16x2 LCD
(AT89C52)

4x3 Keypad

Fig. 2.2 Block Diagram of Digital IC Tester

To provide IC number to the microcontroller we need a keypad. We have used a 4x3 keypad. It
contains 4 rows and 3 columns and 12 buttons. Pressing a button will short one of the four rows
outputs to one of the four column inputs. From this input, the microcontroller can determine which
button was pressed out of 16 buttons.

5
 CHAPTER 3

COMPONENT, APPARATUS AND SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

3.1 AT89C52- MICROCONTROLLER

The AT89S52 comes from the popular 8051 family of Atmel Microcontrollers. It is an 8-bit
CMOS microcontroller with 8K as Flash memory and 256 bytes of RAM. Since it is similar to the
trust worthy 8051 architecture these microcontrollers are as per industry standard. It has 32 I/O
pins comprising of three 16-bit timers, external interrupts, full-duplex serial port, on-chip oscillator
and clock circuitry.

Table 3.1 Circuit components

Components Ratings Quantity Use

Used as pull-up
1K 7 resistors for port 0
Resistors
connections
10K 1
Capacitors 1u 2 Crystal
To provide Vcc
Power Supply 0-10V(DC) 1
supply
Microcontroller(AT89S52) 1 Brain of the tester
To display output of
16x2 LCD 1
MCU
To provide input to
4x3 Keypad 1
MCU
ZIF Socket 1 To mount the IC

The Microcontroller also has Operating mode, Idle Mode and Power down mode which makes it
suitable for battery operated applications. Few considerable drawbacks of the microcontroller are
that it does not have in-built ADC and does not support SPI or I2C protocols. However, you can
utilize external modules for the same.

6
 Fig. 3.1 AT89S52 IC

Fig. 3.2 Pin Diagram of AT89C52

7
3.2 16x2 LCD

LCD modules are very commonly used in most embedded projects, the reason being its cheap
price, availability and programmer friendly. Most of us would have come across these displays in
our day to day life, either at PCO’s or calculators. The appearance and the pinouts have already
been visualized above now let us get a bit technical.
16×2 LCD is named so because; it has 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are a lot of combinations
available like, 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, etc. but the most used one is the 16×2 LCD. So, it will have
(16×2=32) 32 characters in total and each character will be made of 5×8 Pixel Dots.

Fig. 3.3 16x2 LCD

3.3 4x3 Keypad

This keypad has 12 buttons, arranged in a telephone-line 3x4 grid. It's made of a thin, flexible
membrane material with an adhesive backing (just remove the paper) so you can attach it to nearly
anything. The keys are connected into a matrix, so you only need 7 microcontroller pins (3-
columns and 4-rows) to scan through the pad.

Fig. 3.4 4x3 keypad

8
3.4 ZIF SOCKET

Zero insertion force (ZIF) is a type of IC socket or electrical connector that requires very little
force for insertion. With a ZIF socket, before the IC is inserted, a lever or slider on the side of the
socket is moved, pushing all the sprung contacts apart so that the IC can be inserted with very little
force - generally the weight of the IC itself is sufficient and no external downward force is required.
The lever is then moved back, allowing the contacts to close and grip the pins of the IC. ZIF sockets
are much more expensive than standard IC sockets and also tend to take up a larger board area due
to the space taken up by the lever mechanism. Typically, they are only used when there is a good
reason to do so.
Fig. 3.5 ZIF Socket

3.5 DC POWER SUPPLY

The Power Supply is a Primary requirement for the project work. The required DC
power supply is 0-5.

3.6 RESISTOR
A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance
as a circuit element. Resistors act to reduce current flow, and, at the same time, act to lower

Fig. 3.6 Electrical symbol of resistor

9
voltage levels within circuits. In electronic circuits resistors are used to limit current flow, to adjust
signal levels, bias active elements, terminate transmission lines among other uses.

3.7 CAPACITOR

A capacitor (originally known as a condenser) is a passive two-terminal electrical component

used to store energy electro statically in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary
widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors (plates) separated by a dielectric (i.e.
insulator). The conductors can be thin films, foils or sintered beads of metal or conductive
electrolyte, etc. The "non-conducting" dielectric acts to increase the capacitor's charge capacity.
A dielectric can be glass, ceramic, plastic film, air, vacuum, paper, mica, oxide layer etc.
Capacitors are widely used as parts of electrical circuits in many common electrical devices.
Unlike a resistor, an ideal capacitor does not dissipate energy. Instead, a capacitor stores energy
in the form of an electrostatic field between its plates.

Fig. 3.7 Electrical schematic for capacitor

3.8 KEIL µVISION

Keil C51 is the industry-standard toolchain for all 8051-compatible devices, it supports classic
8051, Dallas 390, NXP MX, extended 8051 variants, and C251 devices. The µVision IDE and
debugger integrates complete device simulation, interfaces to many target debug adapters, and
provides various monitor debug solutions.

3.9 PROTEUS VSM

Proteus Virtual System Modeling (VSM) is a software that combines mixed mode circuit
simulation, animated components and microprocessor models to facilitate simulation of complete
microcontroller-based designs.

10
 CHAPTER 4

SYSTEM DESIGN AND SIMULATION

4.1 HOW THE CIRCUIT FUNCTIONS

In this Digital Logic Gate IC Tester, as mentioned previously AT89S52 is used as the
microcontroller unit. The user has to first mount the IC which is the DUT in the ZIF socket. Then
if the user wants to check the IC, he has to enter the IC number from the list shown on the LCD
screen through a keypad. If the user wants to know which IC he has, then he has to push 0 button
on the keypad which will result into auto search for the IC by verifying the database. The truth
table of the logic gates are stored in the microcontroller database during the programming. The
tester will verify the IC by providing various sets of inputs and observing their outputs, and then
evaluating those results with the truth table in the database.

Fig. 4.1 Truth Table for various Logic Gates

If the IC is working properly, then the microcontroller will display the message “GOOD IC” on
the LCD screen, otherwise it will display “BAD IC”.

11
4.2 SYSTEM DESIGN

The system was designed in the Proteus VSM software.

Fig. 4.2 Circuit Connection.

As described in Fig. 4.2 the 16x2 LCD is interface with AT89S52 through Port 3, while the 4x3
keypad is interfaced via Port 0. The ZIF socket is connected through Port 1 and 2.

12
Fig. 4.3 Circuit Diagram from Proteus

13
4.3 SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

After we developed the codes for the microcontroller and the graphic user interface (Proteus), the
Digital IC Tester project works up and functions well. Following figures are the results of the
developed system that displays corresponding results on LCD. We can see all the display messages
like Welcome, list of ICs and the message of IC being faulty or good.

Fig. 4.4 Initialize message displayed on LCD

Fig. 4.4 above shows the first message displayed on LCD screen after turning ON the system.
Fig. 4.5 below shows the list of ICs that can be tested with this system.

Fig. 4.5 List of ICs

Fig. 4.7 shows the input given by the user.

Fig. 4.6 Message displayed on selection of an IC

Figure 8 and 9 shows that the IC is good/faulty after comparing the tests carried on IC and the
actual truth table.

14
Fig. 4.7 Message displayed on testing of an IC

Fig. 4.8 Message displayed on testing of an IC

15
 CHAPTER 5

PCB DESIGN AND HARDWARE REALIZATION

5.1 PCB LAYOUT DESIGN

The PCB layout is designed using Proteus VSM software.

Fig. 5.1 PCB layout design for the digital IC tester

16
5.2 HARDWARE REALIZATION

This involves the actual construction, which is the hard wiring of the circuit already prototyped.
This consists of thin copper strips on one side and plain insulator board on the other side punched
with hole at 0.1- inch matrix interval. Components are mounted on the plain side and soldered on
the copper side. The copper strip runs from left to right and all components soldered on the strip
are automatically joined together; where that is not required the strip is cut at appropriate point
with drill or sharp object. All the components were mounted and soldered taking care that the
transistors, electrolytic capacitors, diodes and the regulator were mounted the correct way around.
The LED was connected with flexible wires, so that they may be mounted on the case. While
soldering the solder blobs should not touch the adjacent tracks otherwise there will be short circuit.
Finally, the IC should be mounted on the IC socket.
Let’s take an example of an IC 7408 i.e., AND gate. It has two inputs and one output. We know
that when both inputs are high then only the output is high. We externally give input to two pins
and read output from the output pin with the help of microcontroller. If the desired output is
obtained then LCD shows pass test otherwise IC is faulty.

17
 CHAPTER 6

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

6.1 APPLICATION

• Being a low-cost technology, digital IC tester will be used by students while working in
the laboratories for basic and digital electronics courses.
• This tester could also be used by the lab-technicians, academicians in electronics lab.
• As the tester is reconfigurable, it could be reprogrammed to test various other ICs, and thus
could be used for industrial applications.

6.2 UTILITIES

• Digital IC Tester is can be used to test DTL, TTL and CMOS based 74xx series digital
logic gate integrated circuits.
• It is a low-cost, reliable, efficient and reconfigurable.
• As the tester is reconfigurable, it can be updated with data of other ICs and can be also put
to test industrial ICs.

6.3 LIMITATIONS

• As of now the Digital tester can only test basic 74xx series logic gate integrated circuits.
• Soldering is done manually, as a result reliability may be under question if not maintained
properly.

18
6.4 CONCLUSION

The Digital IC Tester was successfully designed and its prototype is in the development state.
The Digital IC tester tests the ICs being placed in ZIF socket and gives results of ICs being good
or faulty. It also searches the IC number automatically if we press auto-search button. The model
is user friendly and is easy to use and maintain. It reduces time to test IC as we are testing it
automatically compared to manually testing where various connections and application of inputs
is done. The code is reconfigurable. If any further changes are required to make according to the
need of user, it can be done very easily. The market price of IC testers is very high whereas this
model hardly cost about INR 1000. It saves lots of time and resources and thus is economically
efficient. It would be very valuable for students in their lab courses for basic and digital electronics.

6.5 FUTURE SCOPE

This project has large potential to be improved by number of ways. This system can be further
developed for many other market ICs other than 74 series IC (such as counters, shift registers,
comparators etc.) used here as it is reconfigurable. The developed IC tester is useful for educational
or academic purpose, but further advance development can make it efficient for industrial use.
Also, we can modify the program to check the specific gate that is damaged in an IC.

19
 REFERENCES

[1] J Farr, Digital IC tester, Wimborne Publishing Ltd, 2008

[2] S Raina, P SONAWANE, P SIKCHI, “Digital IC Tester”, IEEE Journal, 2009

[3] Fang Pang, T. Brandon, B. Cockburn and M. Hume, "A reconfigurable digital IC tester
implemented using the ARM Integrator rapid prototyping system," Canadian Conference
on Electrical and Computer Engineering 2004 (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37513), Niagara Falls,
Ontario, Canada, 2004, pp. 1931-1935 Vol.4, doi: 10.1109/CCECE.2004.1347590

[4] MD Pabiania, JT Peralta, LT De Luna, “Microcontroller Based Design of Digital IC Tester

with Multi-Testing and Loop Testing Functions”, IJAIM, 2014

[5] MANNAF HOSSAIN, Md.. “Computer Interfaced Logic IC Tester and R-C Meter”, Global
Journal of Research In Engineering, [S.l.], may 2013.

20
 APPENDIX

https://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/atmel/at89s52_ds.pdf

21

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