Talk:Digital electronics

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User:69.140.78.87 complained about the explanation of levels. Another user complained about the explanation of PLDs; most really are look-up tables, but some are table-controlled general logic functions, so I added a note. User: Ray Van De Walker—Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 16 November 2005

PALs are programmable array logic. As well ASICs are based on gates. The PLD/FPGA/CPLD are tables as noted. There is a correspondence between one and the other. RTL from HDLs (Verilog/VHDL) can be translated by tools to target either table based (SRAM/Flash) device or the gate based devices. Sum of products DNF and others are equivalent to a look up table. So, not all devices are table based. ~2025-33113-31 (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Naming Convention

There seem to be confusion about two main topics in digital design: 1) digital electronics which is CMOS level design and 2) digital logic which is logic level design. Digital electronics is basically analog design of digital systems where tools such as pspice and cadence are used for simulation and design. On the other hand, digital logic is logic level design where tools such as xilinx, VHDL, or FPGAs are used for simulation and design.

For instance, in digital electronics an inverter is built using one nMOS and one pMOS (pure analog). This inverter is then used in digital logic to construct a flip flop (pure logic).

I understand what you are saying, but pspice, cadence can be used for both analog and digital. You can design a TTL circuit with pspice to see gate properties and minimize transistors. This is a topic in digital design. The eye diagram or switching speed of the circuit are a base property of gate level circuits. Transferring a design from an FPGA to an ASIC involves converting logic (RTL) from one technology to another. The gate properties establish timing and temperature ranges as well as process. Could you clarify your point? ~2025-33113-31 (talk) 20:42, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Bad redirect to here

See Talk:Digital_networks#Redirects_differently_than_its_singular comp.arch (talk) 08:35, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

History

This includes wireless, which is not really digital electronics. Chipping code, RSS, etc that are used in wireless maybe digital electronics, but this is an application. As for progress, the there is no mention of FPGA/PAL/CPLD/PLD and ASICs are a major change that happened in the late '80s and forward. Late '90 and early 2000, many designs moved from discrete IC packages wired on a PCB to use programmable devices for glue logic. Mid-2000's SOC vendors introduced pin muxing. Most packages then did not include external bus interfaces. IC gate counts are very cheap and pins became the expensive item. Entire islands of logic sit empty and are enabled based on end application. This significantly reduced the amount of custom digital logic in consumer electronics and many other applications. To not mention the significance of programmable logic devices in the history section of the article is a great gap in my opinion. Programmable logic is detailed later in the article, but the lay reading it will seem abstract. CAD tools and programmable logic enabled the production of more and more sophisticated designs (along with changes in workflows for ASIC devices). ~2025-33113-31 (talk) 20:36, 21 November 2025 (UTC)