Digital electronics & logic
design
1
Increasing levels of development and complexity:
❑Transistors built from semiconductors
❑Logic gates built from transistors
❑Logic functions built from gates
❑Flip-flops built from logic
❑Counters and sequencers from flip-flops
❑Microprocessors from sequencers
❑Computers from microprocessors 2
▪ An electronic counter is characterised by its durable, easy to
use, and compact design.
▪ A digital counter is an electronic counter that features a digital
readout but is otherwise similar to a non-digital electronic
counter.
▪ A mechanical counter displays its results on mechanical wheels
in contrast to a digital counter that uses a solid-state (Liquid
Crystal Display) LCD or(Light Emitting Diode) LED display.
▪ Both LCD and LED use the same basic display technology. The
difference between the two is only how the display is
illuminated.
3
▪ LCD displays are not self-illuminating. They need a backlight
in order to produce a visible picture.
▪ LED Displays are technological advancement of LCD displays
- they are the LCD displays with an LED backlight to power
up the LCD panel.
▪ It means that LEDs are placed behind or around the LCD
panel to enhance the luminosity and video definition of the
monitor screen.
▪ A sequencer - an electronic device or software
programme that can be instructed to order and
modify digitally stored musical sounds for
playback, as through a synthesizer.
▪ "Flip-flop" is the common name given to two-
state devices which offer basic memory for
sequential logic operations.
▪ Flip-flops are used for digital data storage and
transfer, and are commonly used in banks called
"registers" for the storage of binary numerical
data.
5
▪ Digital Logic is the basis of electronic systems, such as
computers and cell phones.
▪ Digital Logic is rooted in binary code, a series of
zeroes and ones each having an opposite value.
▪ This system facilitates the design of electronic circuits
that convey information, including logic gates.
▪ Digital Logic gate functions include and, or and not.
The value system translates input signals into specific
output.
▪ Digital Logic facilitates computing, robotics and
other electronic applications.
6
▪ Digital Logic Design is basic to the fields of electrical
engineering and computer engineering.
▪ Digital Logic designers build complex electronic
components that use both electrical and computational
characteristics, e.g. power, current, logical function,
protocol and user input.
▪ Digital Logic Design is used to develop hardware, such
as circuit boards and microchip processors.
▪ This hardware processes user input, system protocol
and other data in computers, navigational systems, cell
phones or other high-tech systems.
7
❑Digital systems record 1 and 0 in several ways:
• (a) CDs and DVDs represent 1 by the presence and
0 by the absence of a bit (or
depression) in a layer of aluminium on a rigid
plastic disk and detected by reflection of a laser
beam. The same principle—presence or absence of a
hole detected by a light sensor—was used in
computer punch cards and paper tapes in early
computers (and even before that). 8
• (b) Magnetic Disks (and Data Storage Tapes)
represent logic data with magnetised
areas on an iron oxide recording surface. A south
pole sticking out of the surface would represent a 1
and a north pole would be a 0 (or vice versa).
• (c) Spring loaded mechanical switches have two
states, closed and open. Either
of these states could be chosen to represent truth;
for example, the designer might interpret an open
switch as a logic 1.
The electronically controlled switch – a fundamental
digital device
G=L
G=H
x y x y
S S
10
Computer architecture and
binary system
The computer memory and
the binary number system
Memory devices
• A memory device is a device that helps to record information and
recall the information at some later time.
Memory devices
• Requirement of a memory device:
• A memory device must have more than 1 states
(Otherwise, we can't tell the difference)
Example:
Memory device in state 0 Memory device in state 1
The switch is a memory device
• The electrical switch is a memory device:
• The electrical switch can be in one of these 2 states:
• off (we will call this state 0)
• on (we will call this state 1)
Memory cell used by a computer
• One switch can be in one of 2 states
• A row of n switches:
can be in one of 2n states !
Memory cell used by a computer (cont.)
• Example: row of 3 switches
• A row of 3 switches can be in one of 23 = 8 states.
• The 8 possible states are given in the figure above.
Representing numbers using a row of switches (cont.)
• To complete the knowledge on how information is
represented inside the computer, we will now study:
• How to use the different states of the switches to
represent different numbers
• The representation scheme has a chic name:
• the binary number system
The binary number system
• The binary number system uses 2 digits to encode a number:
• 0 = represents no value
• 1 = represents a unit value
• That means that you can only use the digits 0 and 1 to write a
binary number
•0
• Example: some binary numbers •1
• 10
• 11
• 1010
• and so on.
The binary number system (cont.)
• The value that is encoded (represented) by a binary number
is computed as follows:
Binary number Value encoded by the binary number
dn-1 dn-2 ... d1 d0 dn-1×2n-1 + dn-2×2n-2 + ... + d1×21 + d0×20
The binary number system (cont.)
Example:
Binary number Value encoded by the binary number
0 0×20 = 0
1 1×20 = 1
10 1×21 + 0 ×20 = 2
11 1×21 + 1 ×20 = 3
1010 1×23 + 0×22 + 1×21 + 0×20 = 8 + 2 = 10
The binary number system (cont.)
• Now you should understand how the different states of
these 3 switches represent the numbers 0-7 using the
binary number system:
• Try to understand this
Computer memory
• A computer is an electronic device
• ROM Read Only Memory
• Structure of a RAM memory:
• The RAM memory (Random Access Memory) used
by a computer consists of a large number of electronic
switches Read/write
• The switches are organized in rows
• The number of switches in one row is 8
Computer memory (cont.)
Details
• In order to store text information in a computer, we need to encode:
• 26 upper case letters ('A', 'B', and so on)
• 26 lower case letters ('a', 'b', and so on)
• 10 digits ('0', '1', and so on)
• 20 or so special characters ('&', '%', '$', and so on)
for a total of about 100 different symbols
• The nearest even power 2n that is larger than 100 is:
• 27 = 128 ≥ 100
• For a reason beyond the scope of this course, an 8th switches is added
What does all this have to do with a computer
?
• Recall what we have learned about the Computer RAM
memory:
• The RAM consists of multiple memory cells:
Each memory cell stores a number
What does all this have to do with a computer
? (cont.)
• The connection between the computer memory and the
binary number system is:
• The computer system uses the binary number encoding to store the
number
Example:
What does all this have to do with a computer ? (cont.)
• Note: the address is also expressed as a binary number
A computer can have over 4,000,000,000 bytes (4 Gigabytes) of memory.
So we need a 32 bites to express the address
Computer memory (cont.)
• This is was a portion of the RAM memory looks like:
• What information is stored in the RAM memory depends on:
• The type of data (this is the context information)
• This determines the encoding scheme used to interpret
the number
• bit = (binary digit) a smallest memory device
A bit is in fact a switch that can remember 0 or 1
• (The digits 0 and 1 are digits used in the binary number system)
• Byte = 8 bits
A byte is in fact one row of the RAM memory
• KByte = kilo byte = 1024 (= 210) bytes (approximately 1,000 bytes)
• MByte = mega byte = 1048576 (= 220) bytes (approximately 1,000,000 bytes)
• GByte = giga byte = 1073741824 (= 230) bytes (approximately 1,000,000,000 bytes)
• TByte = tera byte
Number Systems
&
Coding
Common Number Systems
Used by Used in
System Base Symbols humans? computers?
Decimal 10 0, 1, … 9 Yes No
Binary 2 0, 1 No Yes
Octal 8 0, 1, … 7 No No
Hexa- 16 0, 1, … 9, No No
decimal A, B, … F
Quantities/Counting (1 of 3)
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
2 10 2 2
3 11 3 3
4 100 4 4
5 101 5 5
6 110 6 6
7 111 7 7
Quantities/Counting (2 of 3)
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
8 1000 10 8
9 1001 11 9
10 1010 12 A
11 1011 13 B
12 1100 14 C
13 1101 15 D
14 1110 16 E
15 1111 17 F
Quantities/Counting (3 of 3)
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
16 10000 20 10
17 10001 21 11
18 10010 22 12
19 10011 23 13
20 10100 24 14
21 10101 25 15
22 10110 26 16
Etc.
23 10111 27 17
Binary
• A computer is a “bistable” device
• A bistable device:
• Easy to design and build
• Has 2 states: 0 and 1
• One Binary digit (bit) represents 2 possible states (0, 1)
• With 2 bits, 4 states are possible (22 = 4)
Bit1 Bit0 State Bit2 Bit1 Bit0 state
0 0 0 1
0 0 1
0 0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 0 3
1 0 3 0 1 1 4
1 1 4 1 0 0 5
1 0 1 6
1 1 0 7
1 1 1 8
• With 3 bits, 8 states are possible (23 = 8)
• With n bits, 2n states are possible
Binary Coded Decimal (BCD)
• Why not use 4 bits to represent decimal?
• Let 0000 represent 0
• Let 0001 represent 1
• Let 0010 represent 2
• Let 0011 represent 3, etc.
• This is called BCD
• Only uses 10 of the 16 possibilities
Binary Number System
• From left to right, the position of the digit indicates its magnitude (in
decreasing order)
• E.g. in decimal, 123 is less than 321
• In binary, 011 is less than 100
• A subscript indicates the number’s base
• E.g. is 100 decimal or binary? We don’t know!
• But 1410 = 11102 is clear
Bytes
• A group of 8 bits is a byte
• A byte can represent 28 = 256 possible states
Memory Addresses
• Memory addresses are in binary
• often 32 bits, these days
• if each memory address maps to 1 byte:
• 232 bytes = 4 GB
• K = kilo = thousand,
• but 1KB actually means 1024 bytes
• 1MB = 1024 x 1024 bytes
• 1GB = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes
Binary to Octal
Decimal Octal
Binary Hexadecimal
Binary to Octal
• Technique
• Group bits in threes, starting on right
• Convert to octal digits
Example
10110101112 = ?8
1 011 010 111
1 3 2 7
10110101112 = 13278