Digital Electronics

Transistor - Transistor Logic

The full form of TTL is Transistor - Transistor Logic. This is a

logic family which is mainly build-up of NPN transistors, PN
junction diodes and diffused resistors. The basic building block of
this logic family is NAND gate and there are various subfamilies of
this logic gate those are standard TTL, advanced Schottky TTL,
schottky TTL, low power TTL, high power TTL, fast TTL etc. now
to know about this family in a more descriptive way we will
discuss the internal structure and characteristic parameters of
some of its subfamilies.

Standard TTL

The
above figure shows the internal structure and characteristics of a
standard TTL NAND gate. The NAND gate of it is a quad two input
type. And it has four circuits of 5400/740. In plain ways the
circuit of this type of TTL operates as follows. The Q1 showed in
the figure is a two emitter NPN transistor.
This type is NAND gate is analogous to two transistors whose
base and emitter terminals are joined together. The diodes
named as D2 and D3 are used to limit the input voltages which are
negative in nature.

Low Power TTL

This is a
subfamily under the main family. This is named so because lower
power consumption and dissipation is achieved. Though the speed
at which the operation is done is somewhat reduced. The above
figure is of a low power TTL which is made using AND gates. The
NAND gate used in this is of 74L00 or 54L00 type and is of quad
two input type. The construction of this type of TTL is almost
similar to that of standard TTL except the resistance which is of a
higher value. For this increased value of the resistance the power
dissipation of the circuit is lowered.

High Power TTL

 Unlike
the low power TTL the High power TTL is the high speed edition of
the standard TTL. The speed of operation of this type of TTL is
more than the previously discussed. The power dissipation for
this higher than other previously discussed TTLs. The above
diagram is of a high power TTL NAND gate. The NAND gate is a
quad two input of type 74H00 or 54H00. The above drawn figure
is very similar to that of a standard TTL except Q3 transistor and
D1 diode combination, which has been replaced by an
arrangement of Q3, Q5 and R5. The speed of operation is higher
and the power dissipation is also higher for this type of TTLs.

Schottky TTL
 A
nother TTL subfamily is Schottky TTL. This design was used to
speed up the time of operation. The speed offered by this type of
TTL is twice the speed that is offered by the high power TTL. The
power dissipation for both the TTLs are same and there is no
extra power consumption. The figure above represents the basic
NAND based diagram of Schottky TTL. The circuit diagram is
pretty much similar to that of a high power TTL, here the Q
transistor of high power TTL is missing. The Schottky transistor
which is used for this type TTL is nothing but a bipolar transistor
which has its base and collector connected by a schottky diode.
This Schottky TTL is further devided in many parts like low power
Schottky, advanced low power schottky and advanced Schottky
whose discussion has been avoided due to complexities.

TTL devices make use of bipolar transistors. The main

distinguishing features of the basic TTL family is that they
demand a power rail which is very close to +5V, and they use
a relatively high amount of current to drive their logic levels
(below 1V for a logical ‘0’ or ‘low’, and above about 3.5V for a
logical ‘1’ or ‘high’). 
A particular characteristic of TTL signals is that the inputs to a
gate “float high” — i.e. rise to a logical ‘1’ — if left
unconnected. This means that the main requirement for
driving a TTL input is to “pull down” the level to near 0V. This
typically takes a few milliamps per input. This is usually
described by saying that a TTL signal source has to be able to
“sink” a relatively large current. Typically, TTL gates take
around 10-20 nanoseconds to switch level. Hence we can
‘clock’ TTL and pass bits through the gates at rates up to
around 50MHz provided the circuits are designed carefully.
With care, speeds approaching 100MHz are possible, but for
high speed operation other forms of logic may work better.

Lots of TTL gates are available. The illustrations below show

just a few of the simplest ones.
As with other kinds of integrated circuits there are many
variations on the basic TTL family. The original chips have
numbers like “SN74xx”, where xx is the part number. In
general, the most useful series is the SN74LSxx  family. These
consume much less current that basic TTL and hence are
easier on the power supply. The ‘L’ in the title stands for “low
power”, and the ‘S’ stands for “Schottky” — the kinds of
diode used inside the gates to help them run quickly without
using a lot of current. (The diodes prevent the transistors
inside the chip from ‘saturating’ when turned on and wasting
lots of current.)
 Basic Properties of some TTL Families.
74 family 74LS family 54 family

Supply Voltage +5V (+/- 0.5V) +5V (+/- 0.5V) +5V (+/- 0.25V)

‘1’ Level Output Current 0.4mA 0.4mA 0.4mA

‘0’ Level Ouput Current 16mA 8mA 16mA

‘1’ Level Input Voltage (min) 2V 2V 2V

‘0’ Level Input Voltage (max) 0.8V 0.8V 0.8V

‘1’ Level Input Current 0.04mA 0.05mA 0.04mA

‘0’ Level Input Current 1.6mA 0.4mA 1.6mA

Comparing the above we can see that the main difference

between the 74 and 74LS families is that we have to pull (i.e.
‘sink’) around 1.6mA out of a 74 input to hold it down to a
logic ‘0’, but we only have to draw 0.4mA out of a 74LS to
hold it down. In general, we can expect an LS gate to
consume around a quarter the power/current of a plain 74
gate of the same type. Hence the LS gates are a good choice
if we are using a battery or want to save on the power supply
cost.

From the table it is not obvious why anyone would choose

the related 54 family as it seems much the same as the 74
one. However, 54 gates are built to operate over a much
wider temperature range (-55 Celsius to +125 Celsius) that
the 74/74LS (0 to 70 Celsius). Hence the 54 family is better if
we have to build circuits for ‘extreme’ environments.

TTL is still used a lot when building ‘one off’ logic circuits as
the gates are cheap and fairly robust (i.e. you aren't likely to
damage them when building the circuit!). However, most
modern large scale commercial and industrial systems use
CMOS logic as it is cheaper/better for integrated systems.
The main disadvantage of CMOS is that it is static sensitive,
hence it can be depressingly easy to destroy CMOS logic
simply by taking it out of its package carelessly!!