|
A logic gate performs a logical operation on one or more logic inputs and produces a single logic output. The logic normally performed is Boolean logic and is most commonly found in digital circuits. Logic gates are primarily implemented electronically using diodes or transistors, but can also be constructed using electromagnetic relays, fluidics, optical or even mechanical elements. Logic levels A Boolean logical input or output always takes one of two logic levels. These logic levels can go by many names including: on / off, high (H) / low (L), one (1) / zero (0), true (T) / false (F), positive / negative, positive / ground, open circuit / close circuit, potential difference / no difference. For consistency, the names 1 and 0 will be used below. Logic gates A logic gate takes one or more logic-level inputs and produces a single logic-level output. Because the output is also a logic level, an output of one logic gate can connect to the input of one or more other logic gates. Two outputs cannot be connected together, however, as they may be attempting to produce different logic values. In electronic logic gates, this would cause a short circuit. In electronic logic, a logic level is represented by a certain voltage (which depends on the type of electronic logic in use). Each logic gate requires power so that it can source and sink currents to achieve the correct output voltage. In logic circuit diagrams the power is not shown, but in a full electronic schematic, power connections are required. Background The simplest form of electronic logic is diode logic. This allows AND and OR gates to be built, but not inverters, and so is an incomplete form of logic. To build a complete logic system, valves or transistors can be used. The simplest family of logic gates using bipolar transistors is called resistor-transistor logic, or RTL. Unlike diode logic gates, RTL gates can be cascaded indefinitely to produce more complex logic functions. These gates were used in early integrated circuits. For higher speed, the resistors used in RTL were replaced by diodes, leading to diode-transistor logic, or DTL. It was then discovered that one transistor could do the job of two diodes in the space of one diode, so transistor-transistor logic, or TTL, was created. In some types of chip, to reduce size and power consumption still further, the bipolar transistors were replaced with complementary field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), resulting in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) logic. For small-scale logic, designers now use prefabricated logic gates from families of devices such as the TTL 7400 series invented by Texas Instruments and the CMOS 4000 series invented by RCA, and their more recent descendants. These devices usually contain transistors with multiple emitters, used to implement the AND function, which are not available as separate components. Increasingly, these fixed-function logic gates are being replaced by programmable logic devices, which allow designers to pack a huge number of mixed logic gates into a single integrated circuit. The field-programmable nature of programmable logic devices such as FPGAs has removed the 'hard' property of hardware; it is now possible to change the logic design of a hardware system by reprogramming some of its components, thus allowing the features or function of a hardware implementation of a logic system to be changed. Electronic logic gates differ significantly from their relay-and-switch equivalents. They are much faster, consume much less power, and are much smaller (all by a factor of a million or more in most cases). Also, there is a fundamental structural difference. The switch circuit creates a continuous metallic path for current to flow (in either direction) between its input and its output. The semiconductor logic gate, on the other hand, acts as a high-gain voltage amplifier, which sinks a tiny current at its input and produces a low-impedance voltage at its output. It is not possible for current to flow between the output and the input of a semiconductor logic gate. Another important advantage of standardised semiconductor logic gates, such as the 7400 and 4000 families, is that they are cascadable. This means that the output of one gate can be wired to the inputs of one or several other gates, and so on ad infinitum, enabling the construction of circuits of arbitrary complexity without requiring the designer to understand the internal workings of the gates. In practice, the output of one gate can only drive a finite number of inputs to other gates, a number called the 'fanout limit', but this limit is rarely reached in the newer CMOS logic circuits, as compared to TTL circuits. Also, there is always a delay, called the 'propagation delay', from a change in input of a gate to the corresponding change in its output. When gates are cascaded, the total propagation delay is approximately the sum of the individual delays, an effect which can become a problem in high-speed circuits. Electronic logic levels The two logic levels in binary logic circuits are represented by two voltage ranges, "low" and "high". Each technology has its own requirements for the voltages used to represent the two logic levels, to ensure that the output of any device can reliably drive the input of the next device. Usually, two non-overlapping voltage ranges, one for each level, are defined. The difference between the high and low levels ranges from 0.7 volts in Emitter coupled logic to around 28 volts in relay logic. Logic gates and hardware NAND and NOR logic gates are the two pillars of logic, in that all other types of Boolean logic gates (i.e., AND, OR, NOT, XOR, XNOR) can be created from a suitable network of just NAND or just NOR gate(s). They can be built from relays or transistors, or any other technology that can create an inverter and a two-input AND or OR gate. These functions can be seen in the table below. OR, AND, NAND, NOR gates may have more than two inputs. All gates have exactly one output. Logic gates are a vital part of many digital circuits, and as such, every kind is available as an IC. For examples, see the 4000 series of CMOS logic chips. Symbols
Three-state logic gates Three-state, or 3-state, logic gates have three states of the output: high (H), low (L) and high-impedance (Z). The high-impedance state plays no role in the logic, which remains strictly binary. These devices are used on buses to allow multiple chips to send data. A group of three-states driving a line with a suitable control circuit is basically equivalent to a multiplexer, which may be physically distributed over separate devices or plug-in cards. 'Tri-state', a widely-used synonym of 'three-state', is a trademark of the National Semiconductor Corporation. Miscellaneous Logic circuits include such devices as multiplexers, registers, ALUs, and computer memory, all the way up through complete microprocessors which can contain more than a 100 million gates. In practice, the gates are made from field effect transistors (FETs), particularly metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs (MOSFETs). In reversible logic, Toffoli gates are used. History and development The earliest logic gates were made mechanically. Charles Babbage, around 1837, devised the Analytical Engine. His logic gates relied on mechanical gearing to perform operations. Electromagnetic relays were later used for logic gates. In 1891, Almon Strowger patented a device containing a logic gate switch circuit (). Strowger's patent was not in widespread use until the 1920s. Starting in 1898, Nikola Tesla filed for patents of devices containing logic gate circuits (see List of Tesla patents). Eventually, vacuum tubes replaced relays for logic operations. Lee De Forest's modification, in 1907, of the Fleming valve can be used as AND logic gate. Claude E. Shannon introduced the use of Boolean algebra in the analysis and design of switching circuits in 1937. Walther Bothe, inventor of the coincidence circuit, got part of the 1954 Nobel Prize in physics, for the first modern electronic AND gate in 1924. Active research is taking place in molecular logic gates. Common Basic Logic ICs For more CMOS logic ICs, including gates with more than two inputs, see 4000 series. Further reading See also | |||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
 |
|
| |