ICE 207 - DIGITAL ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS

CHAPTER 1: DIGITAL SYSTEM

1.1 What is a Digital System?

A digital system is a system that processes discrete information. The discrete entities making up this
information may represent anything from simple arithmetic integers, letters of the alphabet, or other
abstract symbols to values for a voltage, a pressure, or any other physical quantity. To a digital
system, what these entities represent is not important in the processing of the information. What they
represent is important, however, to the human observer who must interpret the results of the process.
A digital system, then, is one that accepts as input digital information representing numbers, symbols,
or physical quantities, processes this input information in some specific manner, and produces a
digital output.

In a large number of computer applications, the computer is required to process information related to
physical quantities, such as pressure or temperature. Since nature is not digital, however, the physical
quantity of time or temperature or whatever must, somehow, be converted to a digital form before it
can be processed by the computer. The usual way of doing this is to first take the physical quantity to
be processed and convert it into a voltage or a current. This is done by using a transducer – a device
that converters energy coming into it one form to energy in another form at its output. A thermocouple
is a good example of a temperature transducer; it produces an output voltage proportional to its
ambient temperature. This output voltage becomes an analog of the temperature of the device.

1.2 Signals:
A signal is a function representing a physical quantity or variable, and typically it contains
information about the behavior or nature of the phenomenon. It is also the abstraction of any
measurable quantity that is a function of one or more independent variables such as time or space.
Voltage and Current are examples of electrical signals; Sound, light are the examples of other form of
signals.
The signals are classified into continuous and discrete time signals. A signal x(t) is a continuous-time
signal if t is a continuous variable. If t is a discrete variable, that is, x(t) is defined at discrete times,
then x(t) is a discrete-time signal. Since a discrete-time signal is defined at discrete times, a discrete-
time signal is often identified as a sequence of numbers, denoted by {xn} or x[n], where n is an integer.
Illustrations of a continuous-time signal x(t) and of a discrete-time signal x[n] are shown in figure 1-1.

Digital Electronic Circuits by S.Meenatchisundaram

 Fig. 1-1 Graphical representation of (a) continuous-time and (b) discrete-time signals
A discrete-time signal x[n] may represent a phenomenon for which the independent variable is
inherently discrete. For instance, the temperature of a day at various intervals of time is by its nature a
signal that evolves at discrete points in time. On the other hand a discrete-time signal x[n] may be
obtained by sampling a continuous-time signal x(t).

If a continuous-time signal x(t) can take on any value in the continuous interval (a, b), where a may be
- α and b may be + α, then the continuous-time signal x(t) is called an analog signal. If a discrete-time
signal x[n] can take on only a finite number of distinct values, then we call this signal a digital signal.

1.3 Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog:

Most signals of practical interest, such as speech, biological signals, seismic signals, radar signals,
sonar signals, and various communications signals such as audio and video signals, are analog. To
process analog signals by digital means, it is first necessary to convert them into digital form, that is to
convert them to a sequence of numbers having finite precision. This procedure is called analog to
digital (A/D) conversion, and the corresponding devices are called A/D converters (ADCs). The
process of A/D conversion is illustrated in fig. 1.2.

Fig. 1-2 Basic Parts of an Analog to Digital Converter

1. Sampling: This is the conversion of a continuous-time signal into a discrete time signal
obtained by taking “samples” of the continuous-time signal at discrete-time instants. Thus, if
x(t) is the input to the sampler, the output is x(nT)=x(n), where T is called the sampling
interval.

Digital Electronic Circuits by S.Meenatchisundaram

 2. Quantization: This is the conversion of a discrete-time continuous-valued signal into a
discrete-time, discrete-valued (digital) signal. The value of each signal sample is represented
by a value selected from a finite set of possible values. The difference between the
unquantized sample x(n) and the quantized output xq(n) is called the quantization error.
3. Coding: In the coding process, each discrete value xq(n) is represented by a b-bit binary
sequence.
An A/D converter takes analog signal at its input and converts them into digital data; on the other
hand, a D/A converter takes digital data at its input and converts them into analog voltage or current
that is proportional to the weighted sum of digital inputs. A sample and hold circuit will be used along
with the A/D converter while converting an analog signal to a digital data. A sample circuit will
sample the signal and a hold circuit will be used to hold the data up to the next time instance.

Fig. 1-3 Analog and Zero Order Hold Discrete Signal

Although the A/D converter is modeled as a sampler followed by a quantizer and coder, in practice the
A/D conversion is performed by a single device that takes x(t) and produced a binary coded number.
The operations of sampling and quantization can be performed in either order but, in practice, a
sampling is always performed before quantization. Fig. 1.3 illustrates the actual analog to discrete
conversion with a sample and zero order hold.

1.4 Advantages of Digital Systems:

Digital techniques and systems have the advantages of being relatively much easier to design and
having higher accuracy, programmability, noise immunity, easier storage of data and ease of
fabrication in integrated circuit form, leading to availability of more complex functions in a smaller
size. The real world, however, is analog. Most physical quantities – position, velocity, acceleration,
force, pressure, temperature and flowrate, for example – are analog in nature. That is why analog
variables representing these quantities need to be digitized or discretized at the input if we want to
benefit from the features and facilities that come with the use of digital techniques. In a typical digital

Digital Electronic Circuits by S.Meenatchisundaram

system dealing with analog inputs and outputs, analog variables are digitized at the input with the help
of an analog-to-digital converter block and reconverted back to analog form at the output using a
digital-to-analog converter block.
To understand the reliability of a digital system, we need to look at the way in which information is
represented in the digital system. A digital system processes information in a discrete form which is
normally binary. The two values of a binary digit, or bit, are 1 and 0. These values are commonly
represented in a digital system by two different voltages. In fact, the 1 is usually represented in a
digital system by a range of voltages and the 0 by another, non-overlapping range of voltages. In one
implementing technology, the TTL (Transistor-Transistor Logic) technology, a 1 is represented by
voltages in the range of 2 to 5 Volts (V) and a 0 is represented by voltages in the range of 0 to 1V.
Because these values are represented by a range of voltage, any minor change in voltage level due to
noise or other external events will not cause a 0 to be misinterpreted as a 1, or vice versa. It is possible
to design digital systems so that even if noise is so large as to change the voltage corresponding to a 1
to the range for a 0.

Digital Electronic Circuits by S.Meenatchisundaram