Chapter 11. Slightly More Complex Functions

First gather a bucket of logic gates

The primitive logic functions NOT, AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR, and XNOR can be connected together to build slightly more complex functions; in turn, these may be used as building blocks in yet more sophisticated systems. The examples introduced in this chapter were selected because they occur commonly in designs, are relatively simple to understand, and will prove useful in later discussions.

Scalar versus vector notation

A single signal carrying one bit of binary data is known as a scalar entity. A set of signals carrying similar data can be gathered together into a group known as a vector (see also the glossary definition of vector).

Consider the circuit fragments ...

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