Mathematics for Engineers and Technologists

8

Logic gates

Summary

In digital circuits extensive use is made of switching circuits. A switch is either on or off with these states being denoted by the digits 1 or 0. A logic circuit can be considered as a collection of switching circuits. In this chapter the basic mathematics necessary to analyse and synthesise such circuits is introduced. The mathematics involved is named after George Boole (1815–64) who first developed the modern ideas of the mathematics concerned with the manipulation of logic statements. In this chapter, Boolean algebra is approached by means of the analysis of switching circuits.

Objectives

By the end of this chapter, the reader should be able to:

• represent switching systems by logic gates;

• represent the action ...