Digital Design Interview Questions - All in 1

1. How do you convert a XOR gate into a buffer and a inverter (Use only one XOR gate for each)?




2. Implement an 2-input AND gate using a 2x1 mux.




3. What is a multiplexer?


A multiplexer is a combinational circuit which selects one of many input signals and directs to the only output.

4. What is a ring counter?


A ring counter is a type of counter composed of a circular shift register. The output of the last shift register is fed to the input of the first register. For example, in a 4-register counter, with initial register values of 1100, the repeating pattern is: 1100, 0110, 0011, 1001, 1100, so on.

5. Compare and Contrast Synchronous and Asynchronous reset.


Synchronous reset logic will synthesize to smaller flip-flops, particularly if the reset is gated with the logic generating the d-input. But in such a case, the combinational logic gate count grows, so the overall gate count savings may not be that significant. The clock works as a filter for small reset glitches; however, if these glitches occur near the active clock edge, the Flip-flop could go metastable. In some designs, the reset must be generated by a set of internal conditions. A synchronous reset is recommended for these types of designs because it will filter the logic equation glitches between clock.
Problem with synchronous resets is that the synthesis tool cannot easily distinguish the reset signal from any other data signal. Synchronous resets may need a pulse stretcher to guarantee a reset pulse width wide enough to ensure reset is present during an active edge of the clock, if you have a gated clock to save power, the clock may be disabled coincident with the assertion of reset. Only an asynchronous reset will work in this situation, as the reset might be removed prior to the resumption of the clock. Designs that are pushing the limit for data path timing, can not afford to have added gates and additional net delays in the data path due to logic inserted to handle synchronous resets.

Asynchronous reset: The major problem with asynchronous resets is the reset release, also called reset removal. Using an asynchronous reset, the designer is guaranteed not to have the reset added to the data path. Another advantage favoring asynchronous resets is that the circuit can be reset with or without a clock present. Ensure that the release of the reset can occur within one clock period else if the release of the reset occurred on or near a clock edge then flip-flops may go into metastable state.

6. What is a Johnson counter?


Johnson counter connects the complement of the output of the last shift register to its input and circulates a stream of ones followed by zeros around the ring. For example, in a 4-register counter, the repeating pattern is: 0000, 1000, 1100, 1110, 1111, 0111, 0011, 0001, so on.

7. An assembly line has 3 fail safe sensors and one emergency shutdown switch.The line should keep moving unless any of the following conditions arise:
(1) If the emergency switch is pressed
(2) If the senor1 and sensor2 are activated at the same time.
(3) If sensor 2 and sensor3 are activated at the same time.
(4) If all the sensors are activated at the same time
Suppose a combinational circuit for above case is to be implemented only with NAND Gates. How many minimum number of 2 input NAND gates are required?


Solve it out!

8. In a 4-bit Johnson counter How many unused states are present?


4-bit Johnson counter: 0000, 1000, 1100, 1110, 1111, 0111, 0011, 0001, 0000.
8 unused states are present.

9. Design a 3 input NAND gate using minimum number of 2 input NAND gates.




10. How can you convert a JK flip-flop to a D flip-flop?


Connect the inverted J input to K input.



11. What are the differences between a flip-flop and a latch?


Flip-flops are edge-sensitive devices where as latches are level sensitive devices.
Flip-flops are immune to glitches where are latches are sensitive to glitches.
Latches require less number of gates (and hence less power) than flip-flops.
Latches are faster than flip-flops.

12. What is the difference between Mealy and Moore FSM?


Mealy FSM uses only input actions, i.e. output depends on input and state. The use of a Mealy FSM leads often to a reduction of the number of states.
Moore FSM uses only entry actions, i.e. output depends only on the state. The advantage of the Moore model is a simplification of the behavior.

13. What are various types of state encoding techniques? Explain them.


One-Hot encoding: Each state is represented by a bit flip-flop). If there are four states then it requires four bits (four flip-flops) to represent the current state. The valid state values are 1000, 0100, 0010, and 0001. If the value is 0100, then it means second state is the current state.

One-Cold encoding: Same as one-hot encoding except that '0' is the valid value. If there are four states then it requires four bits (four flip-flops) to represent the current state. The valid state values are 0111, 1011, 1101, and 1110.

Binary encoding: Each state is represented by a binary code. A FSM having '2 power N' states requires only N flip-flops.

Gray encoding: Each state is represented by a Gray code. A FSM having '2 power N' states requires only N flip-flops.

14. Define Clock Skew , Negative Clock Skew, Positive Clock Skew.


Clock skew is a phenomenon in synchronous circuits in which the clock signal (sent from the clock circuit) arrives at different components at different times. This can be caused by many different things, such as wire-interconnect length, temperature variations, variation in intermediate devices, capacitive coupling, material imperfections, and differences in input capacitance on the clock inputs of devices using the clock.
There are two types of clock skew: negative skew and positive skew. Positive skew occurs when the clock reaches the receiving register later than it reaches the register sending data to the receiving register. Negative skew is the opposite: the receiving register gets the clock earlier than the sending register.

15. Give the transistor level circuit of a CMOS NAND gate.




16. Design a 4-bit comparator circuit.




17. Design a Transmission Gate based XOR. Now, how do you convert it to XNOR (without inverting the output)?




18. Define Metastability.


If there are setup and hold time violations in any sequential circuit, it enters a state where its output is unpredictable, this state is known as metastable state or quasi stable state, at the end of metastable state, the flip-flop settles down to either logic high or logic low. This whole process is known as metastability.

19. Compare and contrast between 1's complement and 2's complement notation.


The only advantage of 1's complement is that it can be calculated easily, just by changing 0's into 1's and 1's into 0's. The 2's complement is calculated in two ways, (i) add 1 to the 1's complement of the number, and (ii) leave all the leading 0s in the least significant positions and keep first 1 unchanged, and then change 0's into 1's and 1's into 0's.

The advantages of 2's complement over 1's complement are:
(i) For subtraction with complements, 2's complement requires only one addition operation, where as for 1's complement requires two addition operations if there is an end carry.
(ii) 1's complement has two arithmetic zeros, all 0's and all 1's.

20. Give the transistor level circuit of CMOS, nMOS, pMOS, and TTL inverter gate.




21. What are set up time and hold time constraints?


Set up time is the amount of time before the clock edge that the input signal needs to be stable to guarantee it is accepted properly on the clock edge.
Hold time is the amount of time after the clock edge that same input signal has to be held before changing it to make sure it is sensed properly at the clock edge.
Whenever there are setup and hold time violations in any flip-flop, it enters a state where its output is unpredictable, which is known as as metastable state or quasi stable state. At the end of metastable state, the flip-flop settles down to either logic high or logic low. This whole process is known as metastability.

22. Give a circuit to divide frequency of clock cycle by two.




23. Design a divide-by-3 sequential circuit with 50% duty circle.




24. Explain different types of adder circuits.




25. Give two ways of converting a two input NAND gate to an inverter.




26. Draw a Transmission Gate-based D-Latch.




27. Design a FSM which detects the sequence 10101 from a serial line without overlapping.




28. Design a FSM which detects the sequence 10101 from a serial line with overlapping.




29. Give the design of 8x1 multiplexer using 2x1 multiplexers.




30. Design a counter which counts from 1 to 10 ( Resets to 1, after 10 ).




31. Design 2 input AND, OR, and EXOR gates using 2 input NAND gate.




32. Design a circuit which doubles the frequency of a given input clock signal.




33. Implement a D-latch using 2x1 multiplexer(s).




34. Give the excitation table of a JK flip-flop.




35. Give the Binary, Hexadecimal, BCD, and Excess-3 code for decimal 14.


14:
Binary: 1110
Hexadecimal: E
BCD: 0001 0100
Excess-3: 10001

36. What is race condition?




37. Give 1's and 2's complement of 19.


19: 10011
1's complement: 01100
2's complement: 01101

38. Design a 3:6 decoder.




39. If A*B=C and C*A=B then, what is the Boolean operator * ?


* is Exclusive-OR.

40. Design a 3 bit Gray Counter.




41. Expand the following: PLA, PAL, CPLD, FPGA.


PLA - Programmable Logic Array
PAL - Programmable Array Logic
CPLD - Complex Programmable Logic Device
FPGA - Field-Programmable Gate Array

42. Implement the functions: X = A'BC + ABC + A'B'C' and Y = ABC + AB'C using a PLA.




43. What are PLA and PAL? Give the differences between them.


Programmable Logic Array is a programmable device used to implement combinational logic circuits. The PLA has a set of programmable AND planes, which link to a set of programmable OR planes, which can then be conditionally complemented to produce an output.
PAL is programmable array logic, like PLA, it also has a wide, programmable AND plane. Unlike a PLA, the OR plane is fixed, limiting the number of terms that can be ORed together.
Due to fixed OR plane PAL allows extra space, which is used for other basic logic devices, such as multiplexers, exclusive-ORs, and latches. Most importantly, clocked elements, typically flip-flops, could be included in PALs. PALs are also extremely fast.

44. What is LUT?


LUT - Look-Up Table. An n-bit look-up table can be implemented with a multiplexer whose select lines are the inputs of the LUT and whose inputs are constants. An n-bit LUT can encode any n-input Boolean function by modeling such functions as truth tables. This is an efficient way of encoding Boolean logic functions, and LUTs with 4-6 bits of input are in fact the key component of modern FPGAs.

45. What is the significance of FPGAs in modern day electronics? (Applications of FPGA.)


  • ASIC prototyping: Due to high cost of ASIC chips, the logic of the application is first verified by dumping HDL code in a FPGA. This helps for faster and cheaper testing. Once the logic is verified then they are made into ASICs.
  • Very useful in applications that can make use of the massive parallelism offered by their architecture. Example: code breaking, in particular brute-force attack, of cryptographic algorithms.
  • FPGAs are sued for computational kernels such as FFT or Convolution instead of a microprocessor.
  • Applications include digital signal processing, software-defined radio, aerospace and defense systems, medical imaging, computer vision, speech recognition, cryptography, bio-informatics, computer hardware emulation and a growing range of other areas.


46. What are the differences between CPLD and FPGA.




47. Compare and contrast FPGA and ASIC digital designing.


48. Give True or False.
(a) CPLD consumes less power per gate when compared to FPGA.
(b) CPLD has more complexity than FPGA
(c) FPGA design is slower than corresponding ASIC design.
(d) FPGA can be used to verify the design before making a ASIC.
(e) PALs have programmable OR plane.
(f) FPGA designs are cheaper than corresponding ASIC, irrespective of design complexity.


(a) False
(b) False
(c) True
(d) True
(e) False
(f) False

49. Arrange the following in the increasing order of their complexity: FPGA,PLA,CPLD,PAL.


Increasing order of complexity: PLA, PAL, CPLD, FPGA.

50. Give the FPGA digital design cycle.




51. What is DeMorgan's theorem?


For N variables, DeMorgan’s theorems are expressed in the following formulas:
(ABC..N)' = A' + B' + C' + ... + N' -- The complement of the product is equivalent to the sum of the complements.
(A + B + C + ... + N)' = A'B'C'...N' -- The complement of the sum is equivalent to the product of the complements.
This relationship so induced is called DeMorgan's duality.

52. F'(A, B, C, D) = C'D + ABC' + ABCD + D. Express F in Product of Sum form.


Complementing both sides and applying DeMorgan's Theorem:
F(A, B, C, D) = (C + D')(A' + B' + C)(A' + B' + C' + D')(D')

53. How many squares/cells will be present in the k-map of F(A, B, C)?


F(A, B, C) has three variables/inputs.
Therefore, number of squares/cells in k-map of F = 2(Number of variables) = 23 = 8.

54. Simplify F(A, B, C, D) = S ( 0, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13)


The four variable k-map of the given expression is:


The grouping is also shown in the diagram. Hence we get,
F(A, B, C, D) = C' + A'BD

55. Simplify F(A, B, C) = S (0, 2, 4, 5, 6) into Product of Sums.


The three variable k-map of the given expression is:


The 0's are grouped to get the F'.
F' = A'C + BC

Complementing both sides and using DeMorgan's theorem we get F,
F = (A + C')(B' + C')

56. The simplified expression obtained by using k-map method is unique. True or False. Explain your answer.


False. The simplest form obtained is not necessarily unique as grouping can be made in different ways.

57. Give the characteristic tables of RS, JK, D and T flip-flops.


RS flip-flop.
S R Q(t+1)
0 0 Q(t)
0 1 0
1 0 1
1 1 ?

JK flip-flop
J K Q(t+1)
0 0 Q(t)
0 1 0
1 0 1
1 1 Q'(t)

D flip-flop
D Q(t+1)
0 0
1 1

T flip-flop
T Q(t+1)
0 Q(t)
1 Q'(t)


58. Give excitation tables of RS, JK, D and T flip-flops.


RS flip-flop.
Q(t) Q(t+1) S R
0 0 0 X
0 1 1 0
1 0 0 1
1 1 X 0

JK flip-flop
Q(t) Q(t+1) J K
0 0 0 X
0 1 1 X
1 0 X 1
1 1 X 0

D flip-flop
Q(t) Q(t+1) D
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 0
1 1 1

T flip-flop
Q(t) Q(t+1) T
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0


59. Design a BCD counter with JK flip-flops




60. Design a counter with the following binary sequence 0, 1, 9, 3, 2, 8, 4 and repeat. Use T flip-flops.



Comments

I read your blog. I found it very informative. I am a big fan of your blogs. I feel the blog aligns perfectly with our services. We are providing data science courses with real-work experience which is ideal for those who wish to have a career transition or start a fresh career path in data science along with a 100% job assurance commitment visit our website Data Science Certification in Pune. These courses are wonderful for professionals
Thanks for the well-written post and I will follow your updates regularly and this is really helpful. Keep posting more like this.
Home Shifting & Packing Service Islamabad
IGCP said…
IGPC is the leading Clinical SAS Online Training Course in Hyderabad institute based in Hyderabad, that aims to provide the students of India with elite education that can empower a bright future. Through the best SAS training in Hyderabad, IGPC connects students all over India under one roof that provides students with quality education through online learning.
ashzz said…
Wonderful Post!!! Thanks for sharing this great blog with us.

Codeme Hub- Best Data Analytics course in Kerala.

https://codemehub.com/best-data-analytics-course-in-calicut-kerala/
Cooper said…
My carpet needed to be cleaned last year, so I searched online for the best carpet cleaning companies. After checking out the website and getting in touch with the agent, I decided to schedule their Mattress Cleaning at Home service for my home's carpet. The carpet was cleaned expertly, and the costs were reasonable.
Anonymous said…
Great Post...Appreciate your writing skills...Keep posting...
artificial intelligence training in Pune
yash said…
thanks for sharing best information , keep posting Software Testing Classes in Pune
Anonymous said…
I always enjoy reading quality articles by an individual who is obviously knowledgeable on their chosen subject. Ill be watching this post with much interest. Keep up the great work, I will be backAmazing write-up always finds something interesting. python training in pune
arnav digital said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ruhi said…
Thanks for sharing i really like this .If you want to know about Software testing Visit:Elevate Your Testing Skills with Software Testing Courses
ramayanam malayalam book
sivapuranam tamil book
ramayanam book
sarva muhurtha panchangam
Thank you very nice sharing.
Great collection of digital design interview questions! As someone diving into the world of VLSI, this resource is invaluable. It's refreshing to find such comprehensive content that helps prepare for interviews in this specialized field. For those interested, I also stumbled upon a fantastic blog page dedicated to loan origination software, offering insights into another critical aspect of technology.

check it out - Loan Origination Software

Keep up the excellent work
monicamanske said…
Great post! At Frontline Publishing, we understand how essential it is to combine consistency with meaningful content to grow a blog successfully. Your tips are clear, actionable, and encouraging for anyone looking to build their online presence. Thanks for sharing!
monicamanske said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Frederick said…
Need fast, reliable dryer repair? Trust our experienced appliance repair service to get your dryer running like new. We specialize in fixing all major brands, offering same-day service, affordable rates, and guaranteed satisfaction. reliable appliance drayer repair service Whether it’s heating issues, noisy cycles, or a machine that won’t start, our skilled technicians are ready to help. Count on us for honest assessments, quality parts, and dependable results. Don’t let laundry pile up—call today and get your dryer fixed right the first time!
Oldest Older 201 – 225 of 225
(追記) (追記ここまで)

Popular posts from this blog

Designing a FSM is the most common and challenging task for every digital logic designer. One of the key factors for optimizing a FSM design is the choice of state coding, which influences the complexity of the logic functions, the hardware costs of the circuits, timing issues, power usage, etc. There are several options like binary encoding, gray encoding, one-hot encoding, etc. The choice of the designer depends on the factors like technology, design specifications, etc. One-hot encoding In one-hot encoding only one bit of the state vector is asserted for any given state. All other state bits are zero. Thus if there are n states then n state flip-flops are required. As only one bit remains logic high and rest are logic low, it is called as One-hot encoding. Example : If there is a FSM, which has 5 states. Then 5 flip-flops are required to implement the FSM using one-hot encoding. The states will have the following values: S0 - 10000 S1 - 01000 S2 - 00100 S3 - 00010 S4 - 00001 Adv...
3 comments
Cross Module Reference   Cross Module Reference abbreviated as XMR is a very useful concept in Verilog HDL (as well as system Verilog). However it seems to be less known among many users of Verilog. XMR is a mechanism built into Verilog to globally reference (i.e., across the modules) to any nets, tasks, functions etc. Using XMR, one can refer to any object of a module in any other module, irrespective of whether they are present below or above its hierarchy. Hence, a XMR can be a:   Downward reference OR Upward reference   Consider the following hierarchy:     Module A   Net x   Instance P of Module B     Net x   Instance M of Module D   Net x   Instance Q of Module C   Net x   Instance N of Module E    Net x   Instance R of Module B   Net x   Instance M of Module D   Net x ...
10 comments