Practice question · Put in order
Order the levels of a digital system from the smallest building block up to the whole machine.
- The complete system, advancing under one clock
- A datapath that moves and transforms data through those blocks
- Blocks such as adders, comparators and multiplexers
- Individual logic gates
- A control state machine that sequences the datapath cycle by cycle
Hints
- Each level is built out of the level below it and hides that level's detail from the level above.
- The control machine directs the datapath, so it sits above it rather than inside it.
Show the answer
- Individual logic gates
- Blocks such as adders, comparators and multiplexers
- A datapath that moves and transforms data through those blocks
- A control state machine that sequences the datapath cycle by cycle
- The complete system, advancing under one clock
Why
Gates form blocks, blocks form a datapath, a control machine sequences that datapath, and the clock disciplines the whole. Each layer hides the one below, which is what lets a designer reason about registers and adders instead of thousands of gates, the pitfall this lesson names is descending to gate level when block level would do.
Practise Integrated Digital-System Reasoning
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