Spring 2015 Week 3 Module 13
Digital Circuits and
Systems
Combinational Design
Decoders + Encoders
Shankar Balachandran*
Associate Professor, CSE Department
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
*Currently a Visiting Professor at IIT Bombay
Combinational Circuits
Combinational circuit is one in which output is
only dependent on the current input.
As a circuit you will not see any feedback loops
Given the current inputs, one can analyze and
say what the output must be
Need not know past history of values
Basic gates like AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR,
XOR, XNOR are all combinational
Combinational Design + Decoders/Encoders 5
Combinational Logic Design
Understand the Problem:
understand input/output behavior
identify the inputs, outputs, and control signals
draw a top level block diagram if necessary
Formulate in a Standard Representation:
truth tables or Boolean equations
Choose an Implementation:
discrete logic gates
programmable logic devices: PAL, PLA, ROM, FPGA
Apply the Design Procedure:
follow the representation → minimization → implementation
algorithm mechanically
simulate your circuit before implementing it on actual devices
implement it on actual devices and verify your implementation.
Combinational Design + Decoders/Encoders 6
Example: Process Line Control
Design a controller to select right length metal rods out of rods of varying
length (±10%) traveling one at a time on a conveyor belt. Rods that are
within spec. (±5%) remain on the belt. Rods that are too short or too long are
discarded by mechanical arm(s).
+10%
+5%
Spec
-5%
-10%
Rod Rod Rod
too long within too short
spec
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Example (contd…)
too within too
long spec short a b c Reject
+10%
c 0 0 0 0
+5%
Spec
0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0
-5% b
0 1 1 0
-10%
1 0 0 1 too short
1 0 1 X
1 1 0 0 in spec
a 1 1 1 1 too long
bc
a 00 01 11 10
0
1 1 X 1
Reject ab ac a b c
Combinational Design + Decoders/Encoders 8
Building Blocks for Combinational
Circuits
Decoders
Encoders
Multiplexers
Demultiplexers
Combinational Design + Decoders/Encoders 9
Decoders
Binary-to-Decimal decoder: n inputs, 2n outputs (n x 2n
decoder). Some decoders have enable inputs.
Each output represents a minterm of an n-variable
function. The output that corresponds to the minterm that
appears on the inputs is asserted (active low or high
depending upon the device), all other outputs are inactive.
s1 s0 EN D3 D2 D1 D0
0 0 1 0 0 0 1
0 1 1 0 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 1 0 0
1 1 1 1 0 0 0
X X 0 0 0 0 0
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Decoder
s0
D0
s1
s0 D1
D1
sn-1
D2n -1
D2
D3
Internal Structure
Combinational Design + Decoders/Encoders 11
Build a 4x16 decoder using 2x4 decoders (decoder tree)..
a b c d EN minterm
0 0 0 0 1 m0
0 0 0 1 1 m1
0 0 1 0 1 m2
0 0 1 1 1 m3
0 1 0 0 1 m4
0 1 0 1 1 m5
0 1 1 0 1 m6
0 1 1 1 1 m7
1 0 0 0 1 m8
1 0 0 1 1 m9
1 0 1 0 1 m10
1 0 1 1 1 m11
1 1 0 0 1 m12
1 1 0 1 1 m13
1 1 1 0 1 m14
1 1 1 1 1 m15
X X X X 0 0
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Implementing Logic using Decoders
Decoders can be used to implement logic functions as
follows:
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BCD-7 Segment Decoder
A B C D a b c d e f g
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0
0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 a
0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1
f b
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1
0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 g
0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 e c
0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1
d
0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1
d d d d 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
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Encoders
Encoder is opposite of decoder. Its output code has
fewer bits than the input code.
Binary Encoder:
Input: 1-out-of-2n code (decimal input).
Output: n-bit binary code.
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End of Week 3: Module 13
Thank You
Combinational Design + Decoders/Encoders 16
