The basic building blocks of a computer are called logical gates
or just gates.
Gates are basic circuits that have at least one (and usually
more) input and exactly one output. Input and output values
are the logical values true and false. In computer
architecture it is common to use 0 for false and
1 for true. Gates have no memory. The value of the
output depends only on the current value of the inputs. This fact
makes it possible to use a truth table to fully describe
the behavior of a gate.
We usually consider three basic kinds of gates, and-gates,
or-gates, and not-gates (or inverters).
Basic gates
An and-gate has an arbitrary number of inputs. The
output value is 1 if and only if all of the
inputs are 1. Otherwise the output value is 0.
The name has been chosen because the output is 1 if and
only if the first input and the second input, and,
..., and the nth input are all 1.
It is often useful to draw diagrams of gates and their
interconnections. In such diagrams, the and-gate is drawn
like this:
The truth table for an and-gate with two inputs looks
like this:
x y | z
-------
0 0 | 0
0 1 | 0
1 0 | 0
1 1 | 1
Like the and-gate, the or-gate can have an
arbitrary number of inputs. The output value is 1 if
and only of at least one of the input values are 1.
Otherwise the output is 0. In other words, the output
value is 0 only if all inputs are 0. The
name has been chosen because the output is 1 if and
only if the first input or the second input, or,
..., or the nth input is 1.
In circuit diagrams, we draw the or-gate like this:
The truth table for an or-gate with two inputs looks
like this:
x y | z
-------
0 0 | 0
0 1 | 1
1 0 | 1
1 1 | 1
An inverter has exactly one input and one output. The
value of the output is 1 if and only if the input is 0.
Otherwise, the output is 0. In other words, the value of
the output is the exact opposite of the value of the input.
In circuit diagrams, we draw the inverter like this:
The truth table for an inverter looks like this:
x | y
-----
0 | 1
1 | 0
Sometimes, it is practical to combine functions of the basic
gates into more complex gates, for instance in order to save space
in circuit diagrams. In this section, we show some such combined
gates together with their truth tables.
The nand-gate is an and-gate with an inverter
on the output. So instead of drawing several gates like this:
We draw a single and-gate with a little ring on the
output like this:
The nand-gate, like the and-gate can take an
arbitrary number of inputs.
The truth table for the nand-gate is like the one for
the and-gate, except that all output values have been
inverted:
x y | z
-------
0 0 | 1
0 1 | 1
1 0 | 1
1 1 | 0
The nor-gate is an or-gate with an inverter on
the output. So instead of drawing several gates like this:
We draw a single or-gate with a little ring on the
output like this:
The nor-gate, like the or-gate can take an
arbitrary number of inputs.
The truth table for the nor-gate is like the one for the
or-gate, except that all output values have been inverted:
x y | z
-------
0 0 | 1
0 1 | 0
1 0 | 0
1 1 | 0
The exclusive-or-gate is similar to an or-gate.
It can have an arbitrary number of inputs, and its output value is
1 if and only if exactly one input is 1
(and thus the others 0). Otherwise, the output is
0.
We draw an exclusive-or-gate like this:
The truth table for an exclusive-or-gate with two inputs
looks like this:
x y | z
-------
0 0 | 0
0 1 | 1
1 0 | 1
1 1 | 0
A valid question at this point is how many different kinds of
gates there are, and what they are called.
Let us limit ourselves to gates with n inputs. The truth
tables for such gates have 2n lines. Such a gate
is completely defined by the output column in the truth table. The
output column can be viewed as a string of 2n
binary digits. How many different strings of binary digits of length
2n are there? The answer is 22n,
since there are 2k different strings of k
binary digits, and if k=2n, then there
are 22n such strings. In particular,
if n=2, we can see that there are 16
different types of gates with 2 inputs.
Most of these gates do not have any names, and indeed, most of
them are quite useless. For completeness, let us look at all
16 and study the functions they compute. Each entry in the
following table is specified by the output string:
-
0000 A gate that ignores both its inputs and
always gives 0 on the output. This gate does not
require any circuits. Just let the inputs hang and connect the
output to a 0.
-
0001 This is the and-gate described
above.
-
0010 This is like an and-gate with an
inverter on the second input.
-
0011 This gate ignores its second input, and
gives as output the value of its first input. It does not require
any circuits. Just connect the output to the first input and let
the second input hang.
-
0100 This is like an and-gate with an
inverter on the first input.
-
0101 This gate ignores its first input, and gives
as output the value of its second input. It does not require any
circuits. Just connect the output to the second input and let the
first input hang.
-
0110 This is the exclusive-or-gate
described above.
-
0111 This is the or-gate described
above.
-
1000 This is the nor-gate described
above.
-
1001 This is like an exclusive-or-gate
with an inverter on its output.
-
1010 This gate can be built with an inverter
on the second input, and with the first input hanging.
-
1011 This is like an or-gate with an
inverter on its second input.
-
1100 This gate can be built with an inverter
on the first input, and with the second input hanging.
-
1101 This is like an or-gate with an
inverter on its first input.
-
1110 This is the nand-gate described
above.
-
1111 This is a gate that ignores both its inputs
and always gives a 1 as output. This gate does not
require any circuits. Just let the inputs hang and connect the
output to a 1.
As you can see, most of the gates possible, are quite useless.
As it turns out, it is possible to build any kind of gate using
only nand-gates. To see this, first observe that an
inverter is just a nand-gate with only one input.
Second, an and-gate can be built as a nand with an
inverter on its output. Last, an or-gate can be build with
a nand-gate with an inverter on each input.
In some circuit technology, it is actually easier to
build a nand-gate than any of the other gates. In that
case, the nand-gate is considered the most primitive
building block, and everything else is built from it.
Similarly, all gates can be realized from only nor-gates.
Again an inverter is just a nor-gate with only one
input. An or-gate is a nor-gate with an
inverter on its output, and an and-gate is just a
nor-gate with an inverter on each input.
Although gates can be arbitrarily complicated, from now on when
we say gates we mean one of inverter, and,
or, nand, nor, and sometimes
exclusive or.
So why do we want to exclude other gates? The main reason is that
we want the number of gates of a circuit to reflect the cost of
fabrication of that circuit. If we allow arbitrarily complicated
gates, we can design an arbitrarily complicated combinatorial
circuit with only one gate.
Our restriction above is not ideal, since in order for the number
of gates to reflect the cost, we would have to take the particular
technology used for fabrication into account. Different circuits are
easy to make in different technologies. But in order to remain
somewhat independent of specific technology, we use this
approximation. |