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L1

Digital Electronics
Introduction
S. Sundar Kumar Iyer
EE370A
Reading Material
Induction chapters in books of
Rabaey, Chandrakasan & Nikolic
and Mano & Kime
2
 Analogue and Digital Electronics

• Initially electronics was all analogue / analog*

– Values of variables voltage and current in a range continuous
For example,
– If the voltage at a node (w.r.t. ground) is between VA and VB
Permitted Range
Infinite values of voltage
between VA and VB possible Voltage (V)
VA VB
• Digital electronics evolved in the last century
– Only discrete values of current and voltage in a range allowed
Permitted Values
Only finite number of values of v1 v2 v3 vn
voltage between VA and VB allowed Voltage (V)
VA VB
3
* American spelling of analogue and used more widely

General Points about ‘Digital’

• Digital is the adjective of Digit which means fingers

• Initial base 10 (as we have ten fingers) – 10 digits

• Can manage with two digits - Binary

• Boolean Logic requires two digits

• Arithmetic operations can be mapped to Boolean operations

• No stopping of Digital Electronics

4
 Boolean Logic
• George Boole 1815-1864
Served as first professor of mathematics
at Queen's College, Cork, Ireland

Wikipedia
– He credited with formalising ‘Boolean Logic’
– The mathematical analysis of logic (1847)
– An investigation of the laws of thought (1854)

Digital Electronics
• Claude Shannon 1916 -2001

Primarily Bell Labs and later MIT

Flowjuggle.com
Wikipedia

• More famous as Father of Information Theory

• “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits”
Master’s thesis at MIT in 1937 Digital Electronics
– Got published as a paper in AIEE Transactions, vo. 57 (1938)
– The foundation for digital electronics

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 Why Go Digital?
• Noise Margin
• Robustness
• Fidelity & Regeneration
• Data Storage
• Ease of Handling Data / Communication
• Scalability

As I heard from Paul R. Gray

Digital and Analogue

The real analogue world

Analogue
Electronics
World Digital
Electronics
World

• The interaction with the real world is always with analogue.

• As the digital electronic world grows, the role of analogue electronics also grows.
• They go hand in hand.
8
 Design Abstraction Levels
A proven method to build big systems

SYSTEM
•Computer Aided Design (CAD)

MODULE
+
•Application Specific Integrated Circuits
LOGIC GATE (ASIC) – create a library
•Microprocessors
CIRCUIT

DEVICE •Clock and power defy heirarchy

G
S D
n+ n+ •Interconnects

Prof. Jan Rabaey, et al.

©Digital Integrated Circuits 2nd

A Generic Digital System

Mano and Kyme Page 6 10