Introduction to digital electronics

Digital electronics is a field of electronics that deals with the digital signal that means the signal which is processed or generated using the electronic circuit is digital. So these smart phones, personal computers and many communication equipment’s which we are using in our day to day life are the examples of it. On the other hand, the analog electronics is a field of electronics which deals with the analog signals, so the amplifiers, timing, and the wave shaping circuits are the example of the analog circuits. For the study of digital electronic one should be clear about analog and digital signals.

Analog signal

A signal whose amplitude can take any value in the given range is the analog signal. Now in the time domain, this analog signal could be continuous or discrete which means in the time domain it may exist continuous or it may exist at a discrete-time interval.

Digital signal

A signal whose amplitude can take only a finite number of values is the digital signal. In the time domain, this digital signal could be continuous or discrete. So virtually all the modern digital circuit which we know are working on the two voltages level, high voltage level which is referred to as the logic high, and other is low voltage level which is referred to as the logic low and since this type of digital circuit is working on only two discrete voltage level so the digital input and output of this type of circuit are often represented by the binary number system.

Advantages of digital system

• Digital circuits are more reliable.
• Digital circuits are easy to design and cheaper than analog circuits.
• The hardware implementation in digital circuits is more flexible than analog.
• The occurrence of cross-talk is very rare in digital communication.

Now in this digital circuit, since the voltage level will continuously switch between the high and low level, they are also known as switching circuit and using their digital circuit it is also possible to perform several logic operations where the output is high and low based on certain logic conditions and therefore, they are also known as the logic circuits. Logic gates are the base building block in the digital electronic and there are several types of logic gates.

The three basic types of logic gates are

• AND
• NOT
• OR

Using all these gates and combinations of these gates, so using all these logic gates it is possible to perform the different logic operation and any logic operation can be implemented using this logic gates can be expressed using Boolean expression .in general two types of digital circuits is a combinational circuit and sequential circuits. Flip-flop is a very basic sequential circuit that can store 1 bit of information and using these combinational and sequential circuits it is possible to perform the logic operation.

Types of logic operation

• Arithmetic operations
• Comparison
• Encoding and decoding
• Multiplexing and De-multiplexing
• Storing
• Counting