It was just two centuries ago in 1800 when Italian physicist Alessandro Volta created the first practical battery. His original battery consisted of zinc and silver stacked in alternating layers, with a piece of cloth soaked in saline between each pair of incompatible metals. The battery, often known as "Volta's pile, " was the first galvanic or primary battery. There have been several advancements in battery technology since then. The science and technology behind batteries has taken a giant leap forward in the past decade. The lithium-ion battery is one example of a newly created and widely available secondary battery. ... Read More

In digital electronics, a flip-flop is a most elementary memory element used in several electronic circuit to store 1-bit information. A flip-flop is a basically a bistable multivibrator having two stable states. Flip-flops are made up of an interconnection of logic gates. However, a logic gate itself does not storage capability, but when several logic gates are arranged in a specific manner, they can store information. Also, flip-flop is the most fundamental building block of sequential logic circuits. The block diagram representation of a typical flip-flop is shown in Figure-1. A flip-flop has one or more inputs and two ... Read More

Let's start this article with a brief introduction of JK flip-flop and its block diagram and truth table, before moving on to discuss the race-around condition. JK Flip-Flop JK flip-flops is a one-bit storage device which has two stable states. The block diagram representation of a JK flip-flops is shown in Figure-1. It has two inputs specified by "J" and "K", one clock input for synchronization of the circuit, and two outputs represented by Q and Q'. When clock signal is absent, the output of the JK flip-flop is independent of the inputs J and K. When the clock ... Read More

In digital electronics, an encoder is a combinational logic circuit which accepts inputs as decimal digits and alphabetic characters, and produces the outputs as the coded representation of the inputs. In other words, an electronic combinational circuit that converts numbers and symbols into their corresponding coded format is called an encoder. The operation performed by the encoder is called encoding which is a process of converting familiar numbers and characters into their equivalent codes. An encoder has 2n input lines and n-output lines. At a time, only one of the 2n input lines is activated. The coded output of the ... Read More

What is a Multiple Digit Decimal Display? A type of electronic display which is used to show multiple digits of decimal numbers is called a multiple digit decimal display. A most extensively used type of multiple digit decimal display in digital systems is a 4-digit display. The 4-digitl display is able to display decimal numbers between 0 and 9999 (largest 4 digit number). The most common application of these multiple digit decimal displays is in digital calculators, digital watches and clocks, and in many other electronic devices that need to display information in the form of decimal numbers. Let us ... Read More

A JK flip flop is a type of 1-bit memory element having inputs namely J and K, one clock input, and two output specified by Q and Q'. The JK flip flop is an improved version of SR flip flop which does not have forbidden state. To avoid the forbidden or indeterminate state, the outputs of the JK flip flop are fed back to its inputs. However, due to these feedback paths, a new problem is raised in the circuit, which is called race around condition. Race around condition in the JK flip is a major problem in which the ... Read More

What is an Incompletely Specified Function? In Boolean algebra, a Boolean function or logic function whose output values are known for a subset of its inputs and has output which is a don’t care condition for at least one of its input combinations is called an incompletely specified function. Hence, in an incompletely specified function, the value of the function for don’t care combinations can be selected either a 0 or a 1 depending on the fact that which one leads to be the more minimal solution of the function. For these combinations, the Karnaugh map (K-Map) entry is marked ... Read More

What is a Decoder? In digital electronics, a decoder is a combinational logic circuit which is capable of converting information in binary form N inputs to a maximum of 2N outputs. The block diagram of a typical decoder is shown in Figure-1. It can be seen that a decoder has N input lines to accept binary coded information, an enable input, E to turn on or off the decoder (optional), and 2N unique output lines. The digital decoders are extensively used in several applications in the field of digital electronics such as decoding of data, seven segment displays, data ... Read More

What is a Decoder Driver IC? A type of integrated circuit (IC) which is designed to decode information specified in the binary form is known as decoder driver IC. A decoder driver IC generates output signals to drive different electronic devices like LEDs, electronic relays, electric motors, etc. Decoder driver ICs are most commonly used in electronic systems to convert digital signals specified in binary form into specific output signals that then drive an output device. Types of Decoder Driver ICs Depending on the decoding function performed, there are several types of decoder driver ICs available. Some important types are ... Read More

What is a Logic Function? In digital electronics and Boolean algebra, an expression that have some operations performed on the binary inputs to produce an output in the binary form is called a logic function. Logic functions are also called Boolean functions. Depending on the specified output, there are two types of logic functions namely, Completely specified logic functions Incompletely specified logic functions Now, let us discuss the completely and incompletely specified logic functions individually in detail. Completely Specified Logic Function A logic function or Boolean function which is defined for all possible combinations of input variables is ... Read More