COS 116

The Computational Universe

Laboratory 6: Digital Logic I

In this lab you’ll construct simple combinational circuits with a “breadboard” and silicon
chips. You’ll use these circuits to experiment with digital logic.

If you get stuck at any point, feel free to discuss the problem with another student or a
TA. However, you are not allowed to copy another student’s answers.

Hand in your lab report at the beginning of lecture on Tuesday, April 4. Include
responses to questions printed in bold. (Number them by Part and Step.) When you
assemble the circuit for Majority-of-3, you need to show it to your TA. Otherwise
you will not get credit for the lab.

Also, at the end of the lab you must remove any wires or components that you added
to the breadboard and place them back in the plastic box you received. Return this
plastic box to the TA before leaving the lab.

Breadboards are used to build temporary circuits during prototyping. Their name derives
from little holes into which you insert electronic components and connecting wires. You
can quickly assemble and disassemble circuits. No soldering required! Here is a picture.

+ – a b c d e f g h i j + –
Some of these holes are wired together on the inside, as shown in the diagram on the left.
For example, if you insert two wires into the holes labeled “a” and “e” in the same row,
they will be electrically connected.

The breadboard has plugs at the top to accept power. Do not connect the power supply
until you reach the appropriate time in the experiment. Also, your breadboard will
come with some wires inserted into it already; please do not remove them at any
time.

Our silicon chips use a voltage of 5 volts to denote the binary value 1 and a voltage of
zero volts to denote 0. These two voltages are also called “power” and “ground”
respectively. Notice that the breadboard has two columns on each side marked with the
red and blue stripes (and the symbols + and –). All holes in the + columns are connected
to the power (red/+) terminal on top and all holes in the – columns are connected to the
ground (blue) terminal of your power supply.

You have been given a plastic box containing all supplies for today. The lab TA will
walk you through the parts that you will need.

• 1 set of power supply connectors

• 1 breadboard (with pre-wired switches)
• 1 set of breadboard jumper wires, multiple colors
• 1 LED
• 1 resistor
• 1 74LS04 chip (6 “Not” gates)
• 1 74LS08 chip (4 “And” gates)
• 1 74LS32 chip (4 “Or” gates)
• 1 chip extractor tool

Connect your breadboard to the power supply using the red and black power
supply leads. Connect the red terminal of the power supply to the red post on the
breadboard (and the black terminal to the black post). Each power supply can feed
multiple breadboards since the jacks can stack on top of each other. Switch the
power supply on, and verify that its voltage reading is 5 volts. If not, contact the TA.

Caution: For safety, before you insert or remove any components from the
breadboard, always disconnect the power by unplug the red power supply
connector from the breadboard’s connector post.

Part 1: Understanding switches, LEDs, and the breadboard

In this part you’ll implement a very simple circuit involving a single switch and a light
bulb (LED): the switch is used to turn the LED on and off.

COS 116 – Lab 6 2

 1
Switch 2 output Switch 1 output
2

3
Switch 4 output Switch 3 output
4

Switch position: Left = “1”, Right = “0”

Your breadboard is divided into two halves, each like the pictures on page 1. On the left
half, we’ve wired some switches for you to use in all the experiments. There are four
white switches in one red block. For each switch, flipping the switch to the right
connects the output to ground, resulting in a binary “0” value; and flipping the switch to
the left connects the output to power, resulting in a binary “1”. You can feed the output
from one of the switches as an input to another component by using a jumper wire to
connect to one of the switch’s output holes, shown below. Your kit has jumper wires of
different lengths. You should always route your wires cleanly (laying them flat on the
breadboard) as this will help avoid wiring errors.
As your first exercise with the breadboard, you’ll construct the following simple circuit
involving a switch, LED, and resistor.

Jumper LED Resistor

wire
1

1. Disconnect the power by unplugging the red power supply wire from the
breadboard.

2. Insert the LED into the right half of the breadboard. Make sure the longer
lead is on the left, as shown above! The LED will not function if you connect it
in reverse. Use a red LED if possible, as it tends to be the brightest.

3. Use a short jumper wire to connect one of Switch 1’s output holes to a hole in
the row where you inserted the LED’s longer leg.

4. Connect a resistor between the row where you inserted the LED’s shorter leg
and one of the ground holes in the breadboard’s rightmost column. (Unlike
the LED, the resistor can be connected in either direction.) The voltage from

COS 116 – Lab 6 3

 the power supply will damage the LED if you connect it directly to the switch.
The resistor reduces the voltage and protects the LED.

5. Reconnect the power supply to the breadboard. Toggle Switch 1, and verify
that the LED is on when the switch is to the left and off when the switch is to
the right.

6. Rewire your circuit to use Switch 2 instead of switch 1, and verify that it
works. Repeat for Switch 3 and Switch 4. If any of the switches do not
function correctly, ask your TA for assistance.

Part 2: Understanding Logic Gates and Truth Tables

Now we understand the gates contained inside our silicon chips, and build a circuit with a
single gate. Each chip used today packages several identical gates:

74LS04 chip 74LS08 chip 74LS32 chip

Power Power Power

NOT
AND OR
NOT
AND OR
NOT

NOT
AND OR
NOT
AND OR
NOT
Ground Ground Ground

6 NOT gates 4 AND gates 4 OR gates

Notice the small imprinted dot at the top of each chip—you’ll use this to orient the chip
correctly on the breadboard. The upper-right pin on each chip should be connected to
power (wire this to the + column on the breadboard), and the lower-left pin should be
connected to ground (wire this to the – column). The diagram above shows how the
remaining pins are assigned to the inputs and outputs of the gates.

1. Disconnect the power by unplugging the red power supply wire from the
breadboard, and remove all the components (except the switch) which you
inserted in the previous experiment.

2. Insert the LED, resistor, and 74LS08 (AND gate) chip into the right half of
the breadboard, as shown in the picture below. Make sure the notch in the

COS 116 – Lab 6 4

 chip is on the top, and make sure the longer lead of the LED is on the left.
The chip may be damaged if you insert it upside down or wire it incorrectly.
Jumper
74LS08 chip
wires
1

LED Resistor

a. Connect the outputs for switches 1 and 2 to the inputs of the AND
gate.

b. Connect the output from the AND gate to the LED.

c. Connect the chip’s power and ground inputs to the + and – columns of
the breadboard, respectively.

3. Reconnect the power supply to the breadboard.

4. Complete the following truth table. Does it match the correct behavior for
an AND gate?

Switch 1 Switch 2 LED

Right (0) Right (0)

Right (0) Left (1)

Left (1) Right (0)

Left (1) Left (1)

5. Disconnect the power from the breadboard again.

6. Carefully remove the 74LS08 chip using the chip extractor tool. (Ask your
TA if you need help.)

COS 116 – Lab 6 5

 7. Insert the 74LS32 chip (OR gates) in the same breadboard location. Again,
make sure the notch on the chip is on the top.

8. Reconnect the power.

9. Complete another truth table for the modified configuration. Does your new
circuit match the correct behavior for an OR gate?

10. Repeat steps 5–9 with the 74LS04 chip (NOT gates). This time, you’ll need to
rewire the breadboard, since a NOT gate has only one input instead of two
like AND and OR gates. Connect a single switch to the input of the NOT gate,
and connect the NOT gate’s output to the LED.

11. Test your NOT gate circuit until it behaves correctly. Draw a picture of the
working design in your notes.

Part 3: Building Combinational Circuits

As you saw in the lecture, you can use AND, OR, and NOT gates to build a circuit to
compute any Boolean function. One simple example is the majority function. Given n
inputs, the majority function is true if more than half the inputs are true; otherwise it is
false.

The diagram below shows one way to use AND and OR gates to build the majority
function for 3 inputs. Complete the truth table on the right by examining the circuit
diagram. Make sure your results match the majority function.

Input A Input B Input C

Input A Input B Input C Result

0 0 0
AND AND AND
0 0 1

0 1 0

OR 0 1 1

1 0 0

1 0 1
OR
1 1 0

Result 1 1 1

COS 116 – Lab 6 6

Now you’ll construct the majority-of-3 circuit on the breadboard.

1. Disconnect the power by unplugging the red power supply wire from the
breadboard, and remove all the components you inserted in the previous
experiment.

2. Insert the LED, resistor, 74LS08 (AND gate) chip, and 74LS32 (OR gate)
chip into the right half of the breadboard. Make sure the chip notches are to
the top. Wire the power and ground connections for the chips, as shown:

(AND gates)
74LS08 chip
3

74LS32 chip
(OR gates)
LED Resistor

3. Make connections from Switches 1, 2, and 3 to the inputs of three AND gates:

COS 116 – Lab 6 7

 1

(AND gates)
74LS08 chip
3

74LS32 chip
(OR gates)
LED Resistor

4. Connect the outputs from two of the AND gates to the inputs of one of the
OR gates. Wire the output from that OR gate, and the output of the third
AND gate, to the input of the second OR gate. Connect the second OR gate’s
output to the LED:

(AND gates)
74LS08 chip
3

4
74LS32 chip
(OR gates)

LED Resistor
5. Reconnect the power supply to the breadboard.

COS 116 – Lab 6 8

 6. Test your circuit to make sure it matches the truth table for the majority
function. If it doesn’t, verify that all the connections are correct. When your
circuit is working properly, show it to your lab TA so that you can get credit
for finishing the lab.

Further Questions to answer in your report

1. Write the truth table for the majority-of-4 function and represent it with a
Boolean expression. Simplify the Boolean expression as well as you can and
report the simplest expression you came up with.

2. Determine the Boolean function that is represented by the following

breadboard circuit. Denote each of the inputs and the output of the circuit by
a variable, and write the Boolean expression of the function being computed.

74LS32 chip
(OR gates)
3

(AND gates)
74LS08 chip

LED Resistor

3. Using the chips from this lab, approximately how many gates can fit on a
single breadboard? (Ignore the space used for wiring.) Intel’s Pentium 4
processor contains approximately 10 million gates. How many breadboards
would it take to contain this many gates? Estimate the number of football
fields this many breadboards would cover. (State any assumptions you
make.)

COS 116 – Lab 6 9

 4. You verified the correctness of the majority-of-3 circuit by checking that its
behavior matches the truth table. This involved checking 23 = 8 combinations
of values by hand. How long would this technique take if you were checking a
circuit with 100 inputs? (State any assumptions you make.) How long would
it take you if you were as fast as the Pentium 4 processor and could check
three billion combinations each second?

COS 116 – Lab 6 10