Flip-flops
Basic building blocks
Combinational circuits: gates
Sequential circuits: flip-flops
Examples of flip-flops
State: flip-flop stores 1 bit
Inputs: control (D or T)
clock (positive edge)
Output: Q and Q' (negation)
Q is current state
Why both Q and Q'?
Because we can!
Flip-flops can be built with NOR and NAND gates, and the negated output is
essentially free
Additional input (rarely drawn)
CLR': asynchronous clear
When set to 0, Q is immediately (asynchronously) set to 0
This is called active low (consumes less power)