Successive applications of the push-button switch, SW will increase the count

up to nine, 1001. At the tenth application the outputs ABCD will reset back to
zero to start a new count sequence. With such a MOD-10 round number of
pulses we can use the decade counter to drive a digital display.
If we want to display the count sequence using a seven-segment display, the
BCD output needs to be decoded appropriately before it can be displayed. A
digital circuit that can decode the four outputs of our 74LS90 BCD counter and
light up the required segments of the display is called a Decoder.

Driving a Display
Fortunately for us, someone has already designed and developed a BCD to
7-segment Display Decoder IC such as the 74LS47 to do just that. The
74LS47 has four inputs for the BCD digits A, B, C and D and outputs for each
of the segments of the seven-segment display.
Note that a standard 7-segment LED display generally has eight input
connections, one for each LED segment and one that acts as a common
terminal or connection for all the internal display segments. Some displays
also have a decimal point (DP) option.

74LS47 BCD to 7-segment Driver

The 74LS47 display decoder receives the BCD code and generates the
necessary signals to activate the appropriate LED segments responsible for
displaying the number of pulses applied. As the 74LS47 decoder is designed
for driving a common-anode display, a LOW (logic-0) output will illuminate an
LED segment while a HIGH (logic-1) output will turn it “OFF”. For normal
operation, the LT (Lamp test), BI/RBO (Blanking Input/Ripple Blanking Output)
and RBI (Ripple Blanking Input) must all be open or connected to logic-1
(HIGH).
Note that while the 74LS47 has active LOW outputs and is designed to
decode a common anode 7-segment LED display, the 74LS48 decoder/driver
IC is exactly the same except that it has active HIGH outputs designed to
decode a common cathode 7 segment display. So depending upon the type of
7-segment LED display you have you may need a 74LS47 or a 74LS48
decoder IC.
The 74LS47 binary coded decimal inputs can be connected to the
corresponding outputs of the 74LS90 BCD Counter to display the count
sequence on the 7-segment display as shown each time the push
button SW1 is pressed. By changing the position of the push button and 1kΩ
resistor, the count can be made to change on the activation or release of the
push button switch, S
Note that a 7-segment display is made of seven individual light emitting
diodes to form the display. The best method of limiting the current through a
seven segment display is to use a current limiting resistor in series with each
of the seven LED’s as shown. But we can do this in two ways.
Multiple Resistors – here each segment has its own current limiting resistor
as shown in our simple BCD counter circuit above.
Generally 7-segment displays require about 12 to 20 milli-amps to illuminate
the segments, so the resistive value of the current limiting resistor (all will be
identical) is chosen to limit the current to within these values. Note that some
displays can be destroyed if driven at 40mA and above.
The advantage here is that the brightness of a particular LED segment does
not depend on the state of the other six LED’s giving the display a constant
brightness. The values of the current limiting resistors can be chosen to
provide the correct amount of brightness as the amount of ambient light will
also determine the required LED intensity.
Our circuit shows a simple 0 to 9 digital counter using a 74LS90 BCD
Counter and a 74LS47 7-segment display driver. To count above 10 and
produce a 2-digit base-ten counter and display, we would need to cascade
two separate divide-by-ten counters together. A 2-digit BCD counter would
count in decimal from 00 to 99 (0000 0000 to 1001 1001) and then reset back
to 00. Note that although it will be a 2-digit counter, values representing
Hexadecimal numbers from A through F are not valid in this code.
Likewise, if we wanted to count from 0 up to 999 (0000 0000 0000 to 1001
1001 1001), then three cascaded decade counters are required. In fact
multiple decade counters can be constructed simply by cascading together
individual BCD counter circuits, one for each decade as shown.

2-digit BCD Counter from 00 t

BCD Counter Summary

In this tutorial we have seen that a BCD Counter is a devices that goes
through a sequence of ten states when it is clocked and returns to 0 after the
count of 9. In our simple example above, the input clock pulses are from a
push button switch but counters can be used to count many real-world events
such as counting moving objects.
However, suitable circuitry may be required to generate the electrical pulses
for each event to be counted as these events may occur at discrete time
intervals or they may be completely random.
In many digital electronic circuits and applications, digital counters are
implemented using Toggle flip-flops or with any other type of flip-flop that can
be connected to give the required switching function, or with the use of
dedicated counting IC’s such as the 74LS90. Binary counters are counters
that go through a binary sequence and an n-bit binary counter is made of “n”
number of flip-flops counting from 0 to 2n-1.
BCD counters follow a sequence of ten states and count using BCD numbers
from 0000 to 1001 and then returns to 0000 and repeats. Such a counter must
have at least four flip-flops to represent each decimal digit, since a decimal
digit is represented by a binary code with at least four bits giving a MOD-10
count.
We have also seen that the BCD coded output can be displayed using four
LED’s or with a digital display. But to display each number from 0 to 9 requires
a decoder circuit, which translates a binary coded number representation into
the appropriate logic levels on each of the display segments.
Display decoder circuits can be constructed from combinational logic
elements and there are many dedicated integrated circuits on the market to
perform this function such as the 74LS47 BCD to 7-segment decoder/driver
IC.
Most 7-segment displays are usually used in multi-digit counting applications
so by cascading together more BCD counters, 4-digit counters giving displays
with a maximum reading of 9999 can be constructed.
The 74LS90 BCD Counter is a very flexible counting circuit and can be used
as a frequency divider or made to divide any whole number count from 2 to 9
by feeding the appropriate outputs back to the IC’s Reset and Set inputs.

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