Digital electronics are those systems that use a digital signal instead of an analog signal. Digital Electronic circuits are those which operate with digital signals. These are discrete signals which are sampled from the analog signal. Digital circuits use the binary notation for transmission of the signal. A digital circuit is constructed from small electronic circuits called logic gates which are used in creation of combination logic. Each logic gate is built to perform a function of Boolean logic when acting on logic signals.
Why computer Engineers need to know about Digital System Electronics
Computer science and engineering has several fields of electrical engineering and it required to form computer hardware and software. Computer engineers have training in electronic engineering, software design, and hardware-software integration instead of only software engineering or electronic engineering. Right from the design of individual micro-controllers, microprocessors, personal computers, and supercomputers, to circuit design computer engineers participate in many hardware and software factors of computing.
The Digital electronics uses VLSI technology, which has greatly decreased the size and area of the circuit boards and has enhanced the accuracy and performance of the systems. Mostly, digital systems have the advantage of data encryption for the communication purposes. The data transmission is safe and secure. All these factors clearly show that the digital electronic stream has wide future scope in the modern era.
Advantages Of Digital Electronics
Digital Electronic circuits are relatively easy to design.
It has higher precision rate in terms of accuracy.
Transmitted signals are not lost over long distance.
Digital Signals can be stored easily.
Digital Electronics is more immune to ‘error’ and ‘noise’ than analog. But in case of high-speed designs, a small noise can induce error in the signal.
The voltage at any point in a Digital Circuit can be either high or low; hence there is less chance of confusion.
Digital Circuits have the flexibility that can change the functionality of digital circuits by making changes in software instead of changing actual circuit.
Disadvantages of Digital Electronics
The real world is analog in nature, all quantities such as light, temperature, sound etc. Digital Systems is required to translate a continuous signal to discrete which leads to small quantization errors. To reduce quantization errors a large amount of data needs to be stored in Digital Circuit.
Digital Circuits operate only with digital signals hence, encoders and decoders are required for the process. This increases the cost of equipment.
