Digital Design

Chapter 1: Introduction

Slides to accompany the textbook Digital Design, First Edition,

by Frank Vahid, John Wiley and Sons Publishers, 2007.
http://www.ddvahid.com

Copyright © 2007 Frank Vahid

Instructors of courses requiring Vahid's Digital Design textbook (published by John Wiley and Sons) have permission to modify and use these slides for customary course-related activities,
Digital
subject to keeping Design
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Instructors may make printouts of the slides available to students for a reasonable photocopying charge, without incurring royalties. Any other use requires explicit permission. Instructors
Frank Vahid
may obtain PowerPoint source or obtain special use permissions from Wiley – see http://www.ddvahid.com for information.
 1.1

Why Study Digital Design?

• Look “under the hood” of computers
– Solid understanding --> confidence, insight,
even better programmer when aware of
hardware resource issues
• Electronic devices becoming digital
– Enabled by shrinking and more capable chips
– Enables:
• Better devices: Better sound recorders,
cameras, cars, cell phones, medical devices,...
• New devices: Video games, PDAs, ...
– Known as “embedded systems”
• Thousands of new devices every year
• Designers needed: Potential career direction
Satellites DVD Video Musical
players recorders instruments
Portable
music players Cell phones Cameras TVs ???

Digital Design 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

Copyright © 2007 • Years shown above indicate when digital version began to dominate 2
Frank Vahid – (Not the first year that a digital version appeared)
Note: Slides with animation are denoted with a small red "a" near the animated items
 1.2

What Does “Digital” Mean?

• Analog signal • Digital signal
– Inifinite possible values – Finite possible values
• Ex: voltage on a wire • Ex: button pressed on a keypad
created by microphone
Sound waves
move the
membrane, 1 2 3 4

2
which moves digital
the magnet,
signal
microphone
analog
which creates signal
current in the nearby wire
Possible values: Possible values:
1.00, 1.01, 2.0000009, 4
value

value
0, 1, 2, 3, or 4.
... infinite possibilities 3 That’s it.
2
1
0
time time
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 Digital Signals with Only Two Values: Binary
• Binary digital signal -- only two
possible values

value
– Typically represented as 0 and 1
– One binary digit is a bit
1
– We’ll only consider binary digital signals 0
– Binary is popular because time
• Transistors, the basic digital electric
component, operate using two voltages
(more in Chpt. 2)
• Storing/transmitting one of two values is
easier than three or more (e.g., loud beep
or quiet beep, reflection or no reflection)

Digital Design
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Frank Vahid
 Example of Digitization Benefit
• Analog signal (e.g., audio)

lengthy transmission
Volts

(e.g, cell phone)

may lose quality 3 3
– Voltage levels not 2 2
saved/copied/transmitted 1 original signal 1 received signal
perfectly 0 0
• Digitized version enables time time
near-perfect save/cpy/trn. How fix -- higher, lower, ?
01 10 11 10 11
– “Sample” voltage at

lengthy transmission
a2d

(e.g, cell phone)

particular rate, save

Volts
a
sample using bit encoding
– Voltage levels still not kept 1 digitized signal 1
perfectly 0
– But we can distinguish 0s 0
from 1s time time
Can fix -- easily distinguish 0s
Let bit encoding be: 01 10 11 10 11 sa and 1s, restore
1 V: “01” Digitized signal not d2a m
2 V: “10” perfect re-creation, e
Volts

3
3 V: “11” but higher sampling
rate and more bits per 2
Digital Design
encoding brings closer. 1
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Frank Vahid
 Digitized Audio: Compression Benefit
• Digitized audio can be Example compression scheme:
compressed 00 --> 0000000000
01 --> 1111111111
– e.g., MP3s 1X --> X
– A CD can hold about 20
songs uncompressed, 0000000000 0000000000 0000001111 111111111
but about 200
compressed 00 00 10000001111 01

• Compression also done

on digitized pictures
(jpeg), movies (mpeg),
and more
• Digitization has many
other benefits too
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Frank Vahid
 How Do We Encode Data as Binary for Our Digital
System?
a
analog button

phenomena • Some inputs inherently

0 1
binary
sensors and
other inputs – Button: not pressed (0), red blue green black
electric digital pressed (1)
signal data 0 0 0
• Some inputs inherently
A2D digital red blue green black

digital
data – Just need encoding in binary 0 0 1
– e.g., multi-button input:
Digital System encode red=001, red blue green black

digital digital blue=010, ...

0 1 0
data data • Some inputs analog air 33
D2A – Need analog-to-digital degrees
electric conversion
signal temperature
actuators and – As done in earlier slide -- sensor
other outputs sample and encode with bits

Digital Design 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
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Frank Vahid
 How to Encode Text: ASCII, Unicode
• ASCII: 7- (or 8-) bit Symbol Encoding Symbol Encoding

encoding of each letter, R

S
1010010
1010011
number, or symbol T 1010100
L 1001100
• Unicode: Increasingly N 1001110
E 1000101
popular 16-bit bit encoding 0 0110000
. 0101110
– Encodes characters from <tab> 0001001 <space>
various world languages
r
s
1110010
1110011
t 1110100
l 1101100
n 1101110
e 1100101
9 0111001
! 0100001
0100000

Question:
What does this ASCII bit sequence represent?
1010010 1000101 1010011 1010100

REST
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 How to Encode Numbers: Binary Numbers
• Each position represents a
quantity; symbol in position
means how many of that
quantity 5 2 3
– Base ten (decimal)
104 103 102 101 100
• Ten symbols: 0, 1, 2, ..., 8, and 9
• More than 9 -- next position
– So each position power of 10
• Nothing special about base 10 --
used because we have 10
fingers
– Base two (binary)
1 0 1 Q: How much?
24 23 22 21 20 + =
• Two symbols: 0 and 1 a

• More than 1 -- next position

– So each position power of 2 4+ 1= 5
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 How to Encode Numbers: Binary Numbers
• Working with binary numbers
– In base ten, helps to know
powers of 10 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
• one, ten, hundred, thousand, ten
thousand, ... 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
– In base two, helps to know
powers of 2
• one, two, four, eight, sixteen,
thirty two, sixty four, one
hundred twenty eight
– (Note: unlike base ten, we don’t
have common names, like
“thousand,” for each position in
base ten -- so we use the base
ten name)
• Q: count up by powers of two 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 a

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 Converting from Decimal to Binary Numbers:
Subtraction Method (Easy for Humans)
• Goal Desired decimal number: 12
– Get the binary weights to add up
to the decimal quantity 32 16 8 4 2 1
• Work from left to right 1 =32
too much
• (Right to left – may fill in 1s that 32 16 8 4 2 1
shouldn’t have been there – try it). =16
0 1
32 16 8 4 2 1 too much
a

0 0 1 =8
32 16 8 4 2 1 ok, keep going

0 0 1 1 =8+4=12
32 16 8 4 2 1 DONE

0 0 1 1 0 0 answer
32 16 8 4 2 1
Digital Design
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Frank Vahid
 Converting from Decimal to Binary Numbers:
Subtraction Method (Easy for Humans)
• Subtraction method Remaining quantity: 12
– To make the job easier (especially
for big numbers), we can just 32 16 8 4 2 1
subtract a selected binary weight 1 32 is
from the (remaining) quantity too much
32 16 8 4 2 1
• Then, we have a new remaining
0 1 16 is
quantity, and we start again (from 32 16 8 4 2 1
too much
the present binary position) a

• Stop when remaining quantity is 0 0 0 1 12 – 8 = 4

32 16 8 4 2 1

0 0 1 1 4-4=0
32 16 8 4 2 1 DONE

0 0 1 1 0 0 answer
32 16 8 4 2 1
Digital Design
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Frank Vahid
 Converting from Decimal to Binary Numbers:
Subtraction Method Example
• Q: Convert the number “23” from decimal to binary
A: Remaining quantity Binary Number
23 0 0 0 0 0 0
32 16 8 4 2 1

23 0 1 0 0 0 0
-16 32 16 8 4 2 1
a
7

7 0 1 0 1 0 0
-4 32 16 8 4 2 1
3 8 is more than 7, can’t use

4 0 1 0 1 1 0
-2 32 16 8 4 2 1
1

1 0 1 0 1 1 1
-1 32 16 8 4 2 1
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Copyright © 2007 Done! 23 in decimal is 10111 in binary. 13
Frank Vahid
 Converting from Decimal to Binary Numbers:
Division Method (Good for Computers)
• Divide decimal number by 2 and insert remainder into new binary
number.
– Continue dividing quotient by 2 until the quotient is 0.
• Example: Convert decimal number 12 to binary
Decimal Number Binary Number
6
2 12 divide by 2 0
-12 1
0
insert remainder

Continue dividing since quotient (6) is greater than 0

3
2 6 divide by 2 0 0
-6 2 1
0
insert remainder
Digital Design Continue dividing since quotient (3) is greater than 0
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Frank Vahid
 Converting from Decimal to Binary Numbers:
Division Method (Good for Computers)
• Example: Convert decimal number 12 to binary (continued)

Decimal Number Binary Number

1 1 0 0
2 3 divide by 2 4 2 1
-2
1
insert remainder

Continue dividing since quotient (1) is greater than 0

0 1 1 0 0
2 1 divide by 2 8 4 2 1
-0
1
insert remainder

Since quotient is 0, we can conclude that 12 is 1100 in binary

Digital Design
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Frank Vahid
Base Sixteen: Another Base Sometimes Used by
Digital Designers
8 A F • Nice because each position
164 163 162 161 160 represents four base two positions
8 A F – Used as compact means to write
1000 1010 1111
binary numbers

hex binary hex binary

• Known as hexadecimal, or just hex
0 0000 8 1000
1 0001 9 1001
2 0010 A 1010
3 0011 B 1011
4 0100 C 1100
5 0101 D 1101 Q: Write 11110000 in hex
6 0110 E 1110
7 0111 F 1111
F0 a

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 1.3
Implementing Digital Systems: Programming
Microprocessors Vs. Designing Digital Circuits
Programmed Custom designed
Desired motion-at-night detector • Microprocessors a
microprocessor digital circuit common choice to
implement a digital
system
– Easy to program
– Cheap (as low as $1)
– Available now

I0 P0 void main() 1
ro I1 P1 { a
0
I2 P2 while (1) { 1
I3 P3 P0 = I0 && !I1; b
I4 P4 0
// F = a and !b,
I5 P5 1
I6 P6 } F
0
I7 P7 }
6:00 7:057:06 9:009:01 time

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Digital Design: When Microprocessors Aren’t Good
Enough
• With microprocessors so easy, Q: How long for each
Image Sensor Micro-
cheap, and available, why implementation option?
processor
design a digital circuit?
– Microprocessor may be too (a) (Read, 5+8+11
Compress,
slow Memory and Store) =24 sec
– Or too big, power hungry, or
costly Image Read Compress
Sensor circuit circuit
.1+.5+.8
Sample digital camera task execution
(b) =1.4 sec
times (in seconds) on a microprocessor
Store a
versus a digital circuit: Memory
circuit

Task Microprocesso Custom

r Digital Circuit Image Read Compress
Sensor circuit circuit
Read 5 0.1
.1+.5+1
Compres 8 0.5 (c) =1.6 sec
s Microprocessor
Memor (Store)
Store 1 0.8 y Good
compromise
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Frank Vahid
 Chapter Summary
• Digital systems surround us
– Inside computers
– Inside huge variety of other electronic devices (embedded
systems)
• Digital systems use 0s and 1s
– Encoding analog signals to digital can provide many benefits
• e.g., audio -- higher-quality storage/transmission, compression, etc.
– Encoding integers as 0s and 1s: Binary numbers
• Microprocessors (themselves digital) can implement many
digital systems easily and inexpensively
– But often not good enough -- need custom digital circuits

Digital Design
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