The impact of microelectronics of railway signalling

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The impact of microelectronics of railway signalling

Short, R.C.

As far as railway signalling is concerned the remarkable thing about microelectronics is that this relatively new technology has already penetrated the field of safety control logic, an area which has remained almost completely closed to well-established electronic technologies such as discrete component circuitry and small scale integration. Indeed, developments now in pogress are aimed at making microelectronics the dominant technology for new signalling installation within a decade. Electronic equipment has been extensively used in some areas of signalling for many years, examples being time and frequency division multiplex remote control equipment, and information systems such as train describers. These applications do not have specific safety requirements and have always made use of the current state of the art in data transmission and processing techniques. These areas are also benefitting from the application of microelectronics, but this is more in the nature of an evolutionary improvement than the quantum leap being experienced in the safety field.