INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT, KOLKATA

Course Name : Digital System Design

Topic: A Brief
Faculty:
Introduction To
Gautam Ghosh
Number Systems

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Introduction:
Comparison of Digital and Analog systems

Basis for Compa-

Analog Signal Digital Signal
rison

Analog signal is represented

A digital signal is a discrete
by a continuous wave (mostly
Representation wave that carries information
sine wave) that changes over a
in binary form.
time period .

An analog signal is described

A digital signal is described by bit
Description by the amplitude, period or
rate and bit intervals.
frequency, and phase.

Analog signal has no fixed Digital signal has a finite range i.e.
Range
range of amplitude. between 0 and 1. 2
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A digital signal is less prone

An analog signal is more prone
to distortion, i.e., it has
Distortion to distortion due to noise present
strong noise immunity.
in the system.

A digital signal carries data

Data Transmi- An analog signal carries data in
in the binary form i.e. 0 and
ssion the form of a wave.
1.

Signals used for transmission

The human voice is the best exam-
Example in a computer are the digital
ple of an analog signal.
signal.

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Data & Number Systems:

1) What is data
• In electronic systems, there are two ways by which information in
the form of signals are represented. i) Analog representation, ii)
Digital representation.
• In analog representation, information so called ‘analog data’ is
continuous in nature whereas in digital representation the
information so called ‘ digital data’ is denoted by a finite sequence
of discrete values or digits. Digital concepts are more
advantageous as compared to analog concepts that we have
already discussed.
• In digital representation, a finite sequence of discrete value is
represented by combination of binary digits ‘0’s and ‘1’s.

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2) What is number system

Different characteristics that define a number system include the number of

independent digits used in the number system, the place values of the
different digits constituting the number and the maximum numbers that
can be written with the given number of digits. Among the three cha-
racteristic parameters, the most fundamental is the number of indepen-
dent digits or symbols used in the number system. It is known as the radix
or base of the number system.

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i) General format of number system

The general form of any number system may be given as:

where r is called as radix or base of the number system. The weighted

coefficients an to a-m may be any number (or digit) between 0 to (r – 1). The
coefficients a-m and a-1 are respectively called as the least significant digit
(LSD) and most significant digit (MSD) for the fractional part. The
coefficients an and are respectively known as the most significant digit
(MSD) and the least significant digit (LSD) for the integer part.

ii) Binary Number System

In binary number system the radix is 2 with symbols ‘0’ and ‘1’ as the two
independent digits. All larger binary numbers are represented in terms of
‘0’ and ‘1’. This 0 or 1 is called binary digit or bit.
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N. B.

Bit is an abbreviation of the term ‘binary digit’ and is the smallest unit of
information. It is either ‘0’ or ‘1’. A byte is a string of eight bits. The byte is
the basic unit of data operated upon as a single unit in computers. A
computer word is again a string of bits whose size, called the ‘word length’
or ‘word size’, is fixed for a specified computer, although it may vary from
computer to computer. The word length may equal one byte, two bytes,
four bytes or be even larger.

Example1: The binary equivalent of decimal number (23)10 is (10111)2

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Signed Binary Number:

The number without positive or negative signs are known as unsigned
numbers. The unsigned numbers are always considered as positive number.
In the signed number system, a number may be positive or negative. There
are three methods used to represent signed binary numbers.
1. Sign-bit and true magnitude representation.
2. 1’s Complement representation.
3. 2’s Complement representation.

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1) Sign-Bit And True Magnitude Representation

In the sign-bit magnitude representation of positive and negative decimal
numbers, the MSB represents the ‘sign’, with a ‘0’ denoting a plus sign and a
‘1’ denoting a minus sign. The remaining bits represent the magnitude. In
eight-bit representation, while MSB represents the sign, the remaining seven
bits represent the magnitude. For example, the eight-bit representation of
+9 would be 00001001, and that for −9 would be 10001001.

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2) 1’s Complement Representation

If ‘r’ is the radix of a number system then (r-1)’s complement of a

number N with digit n is given by (r-1)(r-1)(r-1)….up to n times minus the
number which can be written as (rn – 1)r – N.
For example, the 1’s complement of 10110 is (25 -1)2-10110 = 11111-
10110 =01001
It can be seen that the 1’s complement of a binary number is the
number we get by replacing each ‘0’ to a ‘1’ and each ‘1’ to a ‘0’.

In the 1’s complement format, the positive numbers remain unchanged.

The negative numbers are obtained by taking the 1’s complement of the
positive counterparts. For example, +9 will be represented as 00001001 in
eight-bit notation, and −9 will be represented as 11110110, which is the
1’s complement of 00001001.
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3) 2’s Complement Representation

In the 2’s complement (1’s complement plus 1) representation of binary

numbers, the MSB represents the sign, with a ‘0’used for a plus sign and a
‘1’ used for a minus sign. The remaining bits are used for representing
magnitude. Positive magnitudes are represented in the same way as in the
case of sign-bit or 1’s complement representation. Negative magnitudes
are represented by the 2’s complement of their positive counterparts. For
example, +9 would be represented as 00001001, and −9 would be written
as 11110111.

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For the positive fraction number, the procedure for representation has
already been discussed. For the negative fractional number, it is common
practice to include one more bit to the left of the binary part. This bit is
used extensively to represent the sign of the number and as such is called
sign bit, A ‘0’ is used for positive number and a ‘1’ is used for negative
number.

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3) Octal Number System :

The octal number system has a radix of 8 and therefore has eight distinct digits.
All higher-order numbers are expressed as a combination of these on the same
pattern as the one followed in the case of the binary and decimal number
systems. The independent digits are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. The place values or
weightage for the different digits in the octal number system are 80, 81, 82 and so
on starting from LSB to MSB (for the integer part) and 8−1, 8−2, 8−3 and so on
staring from MSB to LSB (for the fractional part).
Example 1: Octal equivalent of decimal number (24)10 is (28)8

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4) Hexadecimal Number System

The hexadecimal number system has a radix of 16 and its 16 basic digits are
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E and F. The place values or weights of
different digits in a mixed hexadecimal number are 160, 161, 162 and so on (for
the integer part) and 16−1, 16−2, 16−3 and so on (for the fractional part). The
decimal equivalent of A, B, C, D, E and F are 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15
respectively, for obvious reasons.
Example 1: Hexadecimal equivalent of decimal (118)10 is (76)16

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Thank
you

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