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A digital signal is a signal that is both discrete and quantized. Its primary counterpart is an analog signal. Digital signals usually occur in electronics, but may be found in other fields of engineering as well.
Digital signals may be divided into two categories:
- Some are inherently both discrete and quantized (ex. the number of people who visit a certain establishment every day).
- Some describe phenomena that are actually continuous in one way or another. The signal must be discretized, quantized, or both, in order to make it digital. This "digitization" is required if the signal is to be processed in a computer or other digital device.
Because of the Digital Revolution, the usage of digital signals has increased significantly. Most household electronic devices are based entirely or almost entirely upon digital signals. The entire Internet is a network of digital signals, as is modern mobile phone communication.
In most applications, digital signals are represented as binary numbers, so their quantization is measured in bits.
Computer architecture
Digital signal: 1) Low level, 2) High level, 3) Rising edge, and 4) Falling edge.
In computer architecture, the clock signal is a special digital signal that is used to synchronize digital circuits. The image shown can be considered the waveform of a clock signal. Logic changes are triggered either by the rising edge or the falling edge.
See also
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