I am new to digital logic design and would like to know why a flip-flop is also known as a latch?
Electronic – Why is a flip-flop also known as a latch
flipfloplatch
Related Solutions
The basic difference is a gating or clocking mechanism. For example, let us talk about SR latch and SR flip-flops.
An SR Latch will look like this
In this circuit when you Set S as active the output Q would be high and Q' will be low. This is irrespective of anything else. (This is an active low circuit so active here means low, but for an active high circuit active would mean high)
An SR Flip-Flop (also called gated or clocked SR latch) looks like this.
In this circuit the output is changed (i.e. the stored data is changed) only when you give a active clock signal. Otherwise, even if the S or R is active the data will not change. This mechanism is used to synchronize circuits and registers so that the data does not change unnecessarily.
A D flip flop simply latches the value of a wire on it's D pin at the rising edge of a clock. Using three inputs (S, R, and Q (output of the DFF)), you need to create a small combinational circuit which mimics an SR flop:
- If
Sis set, the value ofDshould be1 - If
Ris set, the value ofDshould be0 - If neither is set, the value of
Dshould beQ
With these three statements it's simple to create a small truth table and from that to create the combinational circuit which should drive your D pin.
Best Answer
Because the electronic device reminded engineers of both this item:
and this one:
In the first case, the devices have two states: flipped (in contact with heel) and flopped (not in contact with heel). In normal use they alternate continuously between those two states at about 1Hz.
In the latter case, you can change the object's state from open (unlatched) to closed (latched) by pushing the device. Once in the second state it cannot be returned to the first state by more pushing, you have to apply a specific reset operation to go from closed (latched) to open (unlatched).