After the previous post about XNOR gate using 2:1 MUX, one might have thought that finally we exhausted the number of gates that we could make using 2:1 MUX. But that is not entirely true !!

There are still more devices that we can make using a 2:1 MUX. These are some of the favorite static timing analysis and logic design interview questions and they are about making memory elements using the 2:1 MUX.

We know the equation of a MUX is :

Out = S * A + (S)bar * B

We also know that level sensitive latch equation is

If ( Clock )

Q = D [ This means if Clock is high Q follows D ]

else

Q = Q [ If clock is off, Q holds previous state ]

We can rewrite this as following :

Q = Clock * D + (Clock)bar * Q

This means we can easily make a latch using 2:1 MUX like following.

Latch using a 2:1 MUX

When CLK is high it passes through D to O and when CLK is off, O is fed back to D0 input of mux, hence O appears back at the output, in other words, we retain the value of O when CLK is off. This is what exactly latch does.

So what else can we make now ?

-SS