Digital Logic Design

02 – Boolean Algebra and Logic Gates

Binary Logic
Definition of Binary Logic
• Binary logic consists of binary variables and a set of logical
operations
• Variables:
• Are designated by letters of the alphabet, such as
• Have two and only two distinct values: 1 and 0
• Logical Operations:
• There are three basic logical operations
• AND, OR, and NOT

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AND
• AND operation is represented by a dot or by the absence of an
operator
• Example: or
• and are binary variables and can be equal to either 1 or 0, nothing
else
• “ AND is equal to ”
• if and only if and ; otherwise

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OR
• OR operation is represented by a plus
• Example:
• “ OR is equal to ”
• if or or if both and
• If both and , then

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NOT
• NOT operation is represented by a prime or an overbar
• Example: or
• “NOT is equal to ”
• If , then , but if , then
• The NOT operation is also referred to as the complement operation,
since it changes a 1 to a 0 and a 0 to a 1

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Truth Table
• Definition of logical operations may be listed in a compact form
called truth tables
• A truth table is a table of all possible combinations of the variables,
showing the relation between values the variables can take and the
result of the operation

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Logic Gates
• Logic gates are electronic circuits that operate on one or more input
signals to produce an output signal
• Logic circuits respond to two separate voltage levels that represent
binary variable equal to logic 0 or logic 1

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Logic Gates

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Logic Gates

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Basic Theorems
Basic Theorems
• Operations with 0 and 1:
,
,
• Idempotent laws:
,
• Involution law:

• Laws of complementarity:
,

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Basic Theorems
• Commutative laws:
,
• Associative laws:
,

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Basic Theorems
• Distributive laws:
,

• Absorption law:
,

• Combining law:
,

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Basic Theorems
• Consensus law:

• DeMorgan’s laws:
,
Examples:
• Simplify the following Boolean functions to a minimum number of
literals

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Examples:

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Examples:

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Examples:
5. (

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Examples
• Find the complement of the functions

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NAND Gate
X Y Z
0 0 1
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
NOR Gate
X Y Z
0 0 1
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 0
Standard Representations of Logic
Functions
Truth Tables
• A truth table lists the output of the circuit for every possible
combination of the input
Truth Tables
• Two expressions are equal if they have the same value for every possible
combination of the variables
• Using the truth table (number of entries in the truth table is equal to , where
is the number of variables in the expression), we can show that

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Definitions
• Literal: A variable or the complement of a variable.
Ex:

• Product Term: A single literal or a logical product of two or more

literals.
Ex:

• Sum Term: A single literal or a logical sum of two or more literals.

Ex:
Definitions
• Sum-of-Products expression: A logical sum of product terms.
Ex:

• Product-of-Sums expression: A logical product of sum terms.

Ex:
Definitions
• -variable Minterm: a normal product term with literals. There are
such product terms.
For , , ,

• -variable Maxterm: a normal sum term with literals. There are

such product terms.
For , , ,
Minterms and Maxterms
• Minterm: A product term that is 1 in exactly one row of the truth table
• Maxterm: A sum term that is 0 in exactly one row of the truth table

• Minterm ( ) denotes the minterm corresponding to row of the truth

table.
• Maxterm ( ) denotes the maxterm corresponding to row of the truth
table.

• Each minterm is the complement of its maxterm and vice versa

Minterms and Maxterms

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Canonical Forms: Sum of Minterms
• A Boolean function can be expressed by
• A truth table
• Sum of the minterms corresponding to truth table rows (input combinations)
for which the

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Canonical Forms: Sum of Minterms

•
•
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Canonical Forms: Product of Maxterms
• A Boolean function can be expressed by
• A truth table
• Product of the maxterms corresponding to truth table rows (input
combinations) for which the

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 Canonical Forms: Product of Maxterms

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 Examples:
• Express the function as a sum of
minterms

• The function has 3 variables

The first term is missing two variables
𝐴 =𝐴 𝐵+𝐵 𝐶+𝐶
= 𝐴𝐵𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵 𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵 𝐶′
The second term is missing one variable
𝐵 𝐶 = 𝐵 𝐶 𝐴 + 𝐴 = 𝐴𝐵 𝐶 + 𝐴 𝐵 𝐶
Combining the terms
𝐹 = 𝐴 𝐵 𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵 𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵 𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵𝐶 + 𝐴𝐵𝐶
=𝑚 +𝑚 +𝑚 +𝑚 +𝑚 It could be built from the truth table
as well
• Can be written as

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Examples:
Express the Boolean function as a product of maxterms

First convert into OR terms using the distributive law

The function has 3 variables, each OR term is missing one variable

Therefore,

More conveniently,

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Conversion between Canonical Forms
• The complement of a function expressed as the sum of minterms
equals the sum of minterms missing from the original function

• Sum of minterms = product of maxterms

• Interchange the symbols  and  and list those numbers missing
from the original form
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 Conversion between Canonical Forms
• Example:

From the truth table

Equivalently,

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