Hi Declan,

> What you need to know is that the AD767s latch an input with a short negative 
pulse (as short as 40nS) on the /CS line. I'm not getting this action.

Maybe you are but you don't see it?

> The pulse appears to come from a Pal. I sent the Pals to the 
> manufacturer who tried them in another unit and they worked all day.
> I feel I am looking for a voltage level or timing problem.

Longer wires? Different pcb? Different voltages? PAL's are often
very sensitive for the timing of signals on the inputs, where race-
conditions can occure, leading to wrong states that will not give
your pulse. All depends on the logic of the programming.

I would check the circuits and timing that connect to the PAL's inputs.

> I have a 20Mhz scope here and can't see the pulse, or trigger on it.
> My thoughts turned to building a latch trap - some latch circuit that
> would come up low and latch high if the  pulse appeared. I could then
> tack this onto the chip, and look for the pulse.

A 20MHz scope will not catch this. I have a 400 MHz tektronix that
could do this. But I would still use my logic analyser (175 MHz, Philips).
Can't you borrow a logic analyser somewhere? They really are very
handy for catching one-time pulses, they are made for that.
And you can see all pins at the same time.
 
> Such a latch could be made from a 74F<something>. Any thoughts on how to
> check the level (e.g. does it go below 0.8V) or dwell (does it last
> 40+nS) with this or something similar?

40 ns is very short, you could use a set-reset flipflop/latch 74<whatever>,
preferrably something fast (ACT?), to see if the pulse is seen. You need
short wires and good decoupling!

For the scope:
A 40 ns pulse has a base frequency of 1/40e-9 = 25 MHz. To "see" a
reasonable pulse on a scope you need as rule 10* this, so 250
MHz bandwidth. Even double this if you assume the pulse to be 
the half of a sinewave.

Regards,
Pieter

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