Synchronization and Arbitration in Digital Systems
Chapter One
Synchronization, Arbitration
and Choice
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Digital systems have replaced their analog counterparts in computers, signal
processing and much of communications hardware at least partly because
they are much more reliable. They operate in a domain of absolutes where
all the data moving from one place to another is quantized into defined high
or low voltages, or binary coded combinations of highs and lows. The great
advantage of this is that the data represented by the voltages can be preserved
in the presence of small amounts of noise, or variations in component
or power supplies, which can affect the voltages. A small variation in a high
is still easily distinguished from a low, and a simple circuit, such as a gate or
an inverter, can easily restore the correct output level.
In a synchronous system the signal states are also held by flip-flops
when the clock ticks. Clocking digitizes time into discrete intervals of
time, which are multiples of the clock cycle, with data computed during
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