Page 149 - Bebop to The Boolean Boogie An Unconventional Guide to Electronics Fundamentals, Components, and Processes

130 Chapter Eleven

c data I I I
(a) ;cyve 1 clock

negative setu

c data
(b) negative
clock

negative hold
setup
1
Figure 1 1-25. Negative setup and hold times

Brick by Brick
Let us pause here for a brief philosophical moment. Consider, if you will,
a brick formed from clay. Now, there's not a lot you can do with a single brick,
but when you combine thousands and thousands of bricks together you can
create the most tremendous structures. At the end of the day, the Great Wall
of China is no more than a pile of bricks molded by man's imagination."
In the world of the electronics engineer, transistors are the clay, primitive
logic gates are the bricks, and the functions described above are simply building

blocks." Any digital system, even one as complex as a supercomputer, is
constructed from building blocks like comparators, multiplexers, shift registers,
and counters. Once you understand the building blocks, there are no ends to
the things you can achieve!

10 But at approximately 2,400 km in length, it's a very impressive pile of bricks (the author has
walked-and climbed-a small portion of the beast and it fair took his breath away).
11 We might also note that clay and transistors share something else in common-they both
consist predominantly of silicon!