Chapter 1: Introduction to Digital Techniques

Analog Signals:
The signals were talking about are time-varying quantities which convey some sort of
information. Signals are passed between devices in order to send and receive information,
which might be video, audio, or some sort of encoded data. Usually the signals are
transmitted through wires, but they could also pass through the air via radio frequency (RF)
waves. An Analog signal should be smooth and continuous.

Digital Signal:
Digital signals will be one of two values like either 0V or 5V. Timing graphs of these
signals look like square waves.

Positive and Negative Logic:

There are two types of representations used in digital systems, the positive logic and the
negative logic representations.
In positive logic representation Bit 1 represents Logic high and Bit 0 represent a Logic low as
shown in fig 2 a and b. High is represented by +5 Volts and low is represented by -5 Volts or
0 Volts.

n Negative logic representation Bit 1 represents logic low and Bit 0 represents logic high as
shown in Fig 3 a and b. In terms of voltage level, bit 1 can be represented as +5V and bit 0
can be represented as 0 V or -5 Volts

Propagation delay, symbolized tpd, is the time required for a digital signal to travel from the
input(s) of a logic gate to the output. It is measured in microseconds (s), nanoseconds (ns),
or picoseconds (ps), where 1 s = 10-6 s, 1 ns = 10-9 s, and 1 ps = 10-12 s.
Fan-in is the number of inputs a gate can handle. For instance the fan-in for the AND gate is
3. Physical logic gates with a large fan-in tend to be slower than those with a small fan-in.
This is because the complexity of the input circuitry increases the input capacitance of the
device.
Fan-out is a term that defines the maximum number of digital inputs that the output of a
single logic gate can feed. Most transistor-transistor logic ( TTL ) gates can feed up to 10
other digital gates or devices.
Circuit noise immunity is the ability of a device or component to operate in the presence of
noise disturbance.

Advantages of Digital Systems:

1. Ease of programmability
The digital systems can be used for different applications by simply changing the program
without additional changes in hardware.
2. Reduction in cost of hardware
The cost of hardware gets reduced by use of digital components and this has been possible
due to advances in IC technology. With ICs the number of components that can be placed in a
given area of Silicon are increased which helps in cost reduction.
3. High speed
Digital processing of data ensures high speed of operation which is possible due to advances
in Digital Signal Processing.
4. High Reliability
Digital systems are highly reliable one of the reasons for that is use of error correction codes.
5. Design is easy
The design of digital systems which require use of Boolean algebra and other digital
techniques is easier compared to analog designing.
6. Result can be reproduced easily
Since the output of digital systems unlike analog systems is independent of temperature,
noise, humidity and other characteristics of components the reproducibility of results is
higher in digital systems than in analog systems.

Disadvantages of Digital systems:

There is really only one major drawback when using digital techniques:
The real world is mainly analog.
Most physical quantities are analog in nature, and it is these quantities that are often the
inputs and outputs that are being monitored, operated on, and controlled by a system.
To take advantage of digital techniques when dealing with analog inputs and outputs, three
steps must be followed:
1. Convert the real-world analog inputs to digital form. (ADC)
2. Process (operate on) the digital information.
3. Convert the digital outputs back to real-world analog form. (DAC)

The following diagram shows a temperature control system that requires analog/digital
conversions in order to allow the use of digital processing techniques.

Difference between CMOS, TTL and ECL family: