31 March 2020

Differences between Analog Circuits and Digital Circuits

What is an Analog circuit?

The analog circuits, which operate or work with continuous-valued signals or continuously varying signals, these signals are commonly referred to as an analog signal. The Analog signal is sound, light, etc. The Analog circuit is usually much more susceptible to noise. The small changes in the voltage level of an analog signal may produce significant errors when being processed.


What is a Digital circuit? 
The Digital circuit operates or works on signals whose values exist at two levels only or has only two values the 0's ad 1's. These signals are commonly referred to as a digital signal, at any given instant of time the value of digital can be either high(1) or low(0).

The main key difference between Analog circuit and Digital circuit are listed below:

  • Analog circuits operate on continuously variable signal also known as the Analog signal while in Digital circuit operate on discreetly variable signal or digital signals. This signal existed only in two levels 0 and 1.
  • Analog signal is quite difficult to design, depending on the efficiency and precision. Digital circuit are relatively easy to design with automated tools available for various stages of design and analysis.
  • Analog circuit there is no need for data conversion, there is delay no loss of information but in the digital circuit the process of converting analog signal to digital signal, there might a significant amount of data loss, which can result in loss of information.
  • Analog circuits can directly accept the signal from outside as the data is already analog whereas if the digital circuit has to acquire data from the physical world, the analog signals must be converted to digital signals first.
  • If the precision and accuracy are not a criterion, then analog circuits can be simple and inexpensive while in the Digital circuit is a simple design technique and also a low cost, the digital circuit provides good accuracy and precision.
  • Due to the lack of skilled engineers and the complexity of the design the analog circuits can turn out to be quite expensive, Wheres advanced integrated circuits technologies and many other factors help the digital circuits to be reliable.
  • Analog circuit are typically routine made and lack flexibility, Digital circuit has a high degree of elasticity.
  • In analog circuits, since there is no conversions involved at the input or at the output side there is no loss of information that is available for processing but in a digital circuit due to conversion process at the input side means that analog to digital and the output side, some amount of information is lost during the conversion process.
  • The manpower available to design analog circuits is very low, this results in long time to market the finished products, while in the digital circuit the available manpower to design. Digital circuits are significantly very large compared to that of analog circuit designers.
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