Chapter 1 Digital Concepts

Digital Concepts
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Analog and Digital Signals:

 A Signal: is a physical phenomenon that has a unique value at every instant of time
(temperature, light intensity, blood pressure, heart beat rate, voltage ...etc.)
 Any signal could be either analog or digital signal
 Analog Signal:
- Is a signal that at any time it can have one of an infinite number of possible values
- Hence, it is value is continues
- The temperature outside is analog signal because its value is continues (it could be
43.2545)
 Digital Signal:
- Is a signal that at any time it can have one of finite set of possible values
- Hence, its value is discrete
- The number of students attending a class is a digital signal (it could be
0,1,2,3,...,50)

Binary Digits and Logic Levels:

 Bit:
- We said before that digital signals are those that take their values from a finite set
of possible values
- Now, if this finite set consists of only two possible values then we say that the
values from this set are Binary values
- In such binary system each digit (value) is either 0 or 1
- A Bite: is a binary digit. thus, it can be either 0 or 1
 Code:
- Groups of bits (combinations of 1s and 0s ) are called Codes
- Codes are used to represent numbers, letters, symbols, instructions and anything
else in digital and computing systems
 Digital circuits deal with binary digital values
 Logic Levels:
- In digital circuits two different voltage levels are used to represent the two
available bits (0 and 1)

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Chapter 1 Digital Concepts

- 1 is represented by the higher voltage which we will refer to as HIGH

- 0 is represented by the lower voltage which we will refer to as LOW
- Thus, HIGHT=1 LOW=0
- In practical digital circuits however HIGH can be any voltage between specified
minimum value and a specified maximum value
- Likewise, LOW can be any voltage between specified minimum value and a
specified maximum value
- There can be no overlap between the accepted range of HIGH levels and the
accepted range of LOW levels

- The variable represents the maximum high voltage value and

represents the minimum high voltage value
- The variable represents the maximum low voltage value and
represents the minimum low voltage value
- The range between and is unaccepted for proper operation, thus
voltage value in digital circuit should not fall into this area because it wouldn’t be
clear whether it is 0 or 1

So What are Digital Circuits???

 First of all ; most of the circuits that we studied in electric and electronic circuit
courses were analog circuits (voltage could take any possible value, thus voltage had
a continues value)
 We know that a transistor can be used as a switch:
- As in a mechanical switch, a transistor can be used to either allow or block the
passage of electrical charge

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- Transistors can be thought of as voltage-controlled switches

 Using transistor switches and resistors from electric/electronic circuits, we can build
interesting elementary components that we will call them: Gates
 So Gates are:
- basic elementary components that are made of resistors and transistors
- the voltage output of these gates could be either HIGH or LOW
 NOT Gate:
- Is a gate that is build using the following configuration:

- The output of a NOT gate is always the inverse of its input

 AND Gate:
- Is a gate that is build using the following configuration:

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Chapter 1 Digital Concepts

- The output voltage is HIGH only if both input voltages are HIGH, otherwise the
output is LOW
 OR Gate:
- Is build using the following configuration:

- It is enough for at least only one input voltage to be HIGH for the output of the
gate to be HIGH
 These basic gates (NOT, AND ,OR) can be used as building blocks (like LEGO blocks )
to build more complex circuits
 Since each of these building block are digital components (because they operate only
using digital values 0,1 ), then any circuit that is built using these gates would as well
operate using only digital values thus these circuits would be Digital Circuits
 A Digital Circuit: is an electronic circuit that is built from digital components and any
value a digital circuit deals with is either is either 0 or 1. Hence the voltage in digital
circuits could be either LOW voltage or HIGH voltage (that we abstractly represent as
0 or 1).
 Computers are considered digital machines because they are built using digital
circuits (microprocessors, memories, buses ...etc.) and they deal with data in digital
form represented as 0 and 1