Circuits

Sunday, January 27, 2013 8:44 PM

Basics Circuits are essentially logic applied through pictures. Below, you will see logical keywords in pictorial form.

Reading Circuits Sometimes there will be a solid black dot denoting where to start. If there is no indication of where to start, you generally start in the top left and move towards the right. Ex: Using this circuit, find an expression for the value of X.

Work: the first expression is A && B, but there's a NOT immediately after, so what we really have is !(A && B). Then, the result is AND'ed with a C, but there's also a NOT right after that. So what we have in the long run is !(!(A && B) && C). Finally, that result is OR'd with D. Answer: !(!(A && B) && C) || D Ex: What is the equivalent Boolean expression for the following digital circuit?

Work: the first expression is A NOR B. Then you AND that with A to get (A NOR B) && A. Since this may not be a given value, check the truth table to see if it can be simplified. A F B F A nor B (A nor B) and A T F
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F F T T

F T F T

T F F F

F F F F

The expression always evaluates to false. Answer: false. Ex: For the following logical circuit, the OUTPUT is equivalent to which expression below?

Work: starting at the top left, we have the not symbol after the B but before the and symbol. Therefore, we have (not B and A). Moving down, we have (A and B). Moving right, we have the or symbol, so we OR our two expressions together. (not B and A) or (A and B). We move down to get our third expression, (A and C). Finally, we have the OR symbol to tie this expression to the combination of the other expressions. This looks like: ((not B and A) or (A and B)) or (A and C) Now that we have our overall expression, we can begin to simplify. First, use the distributive law. ((not B and A) or (A and B)) or (A and C) (A and (not B or B)) or (A and C) Tautology (A and TRUE) or (A and C) Identity A or (A and C) Absorption A Answer: A

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