In electronics and especially synchronous digital circuits, a clock signal is a particular type of signal that oscillates between a high and a low state and is utilized like a metronome to coordinate actions of circuits. Although the word signal has a number of other meanings, the term here is used for "transmitted energy that can carry information".
A clock signal is produced by a clock generator. Although more complex arrangements are used, the most common clock signal is in the form of a square wave with a 50% duty cycle, usually with a fixed, constant frequency. Circuits using the clock signal for synchronization may become active at either the rising edge, falling edge, or, in the case of double data rate, both in the rising and in the falling edges of the clock cycle.
Read more about Clock Signal: Digital Circuits, Other Circuits, Distribution
Famous quotes containing the words clock and/or signal:
“Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock as not going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch’s greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Certainly the effort to remain unchanged, young, when the body gives so impressive a signal of change as the menopause, is gallant; but it is a stupid, self-sacrificial gallantry, better befitting a boy of twenty than a woman of forty-five or fifty. Let the athletes die young and laurel-crowned. Let the soldiers earn the Purple Hearts. Let women die old, white-crowned, with human hearts.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)