On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 06:59 -0800, alan smith wrote:
> hmmm...8 bit shift register and a BCD counter....still discrete logic but not a ton of gates.
>    
>   Makes me wonder why anyone would do it in gates....8 pin PIC, serial data in, BCD out?

Usually the answer to why anybody does anything in gates is very simple:
speed. 

That's always a trade off with digital logic. Take pretty much any sort
of complex function and there are always two extremes in how to design
it: small and slow, or big and fast. Obviously there is alot of room in
between.

A similar situation often appears in the progamming world. Consider a
sine function. You can actually calculate the sine value, using the
formulas. Generally small in code size, but also takes alot of cycles to
complete. Consider the other extreme: a LUT. VERY fast (one cycle), but
also very big (depending on the resolution you're after).

TTYL



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