Electronic hardware consists of interconnected
electronic component
An electronic component is any basic discrete electronic device or physical entity part of an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are mostly industrial products, available in a singula ...
s which perform
analog or
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
operations on received and locally stored information to produce as output or store resulting new information or to provide control for output actuator mechanisms.
Electronic hardware can range from individual
chips
''CHiPs'' is an American crime drama television series created by Rick Rosner and originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to May 1, 1983. After the final first-run telecast on NBC in May 1983, the series went into reruns on Sundays fr ...
/
circuits to distributed
information processing
In cognitive psychology, information processing is an approach to the goal of understanding human thinking that treats cognition as essentially Computing, computational in nature, with the mind being the ''software'' and the brain being the ''hard ...
systems. Well designed electronic hardware is composed of hierarchies of functional modules which inter-communicate via precisely defined interfaces.
Hardware logic is primarily a differentiation of the data processing circuitry from other more generalized circuitry. For example nearly all computers include a
power supply
A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, electric current, current, and frequency to power ...
which consists of circuitry not involved in data processing but rather powering the data processing circuits. Similarly, a computer may output information to a
computer monitor
A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a electronic visual display, visual display, support electronics, power supply, Housing (engineering), housing, electri ...
or
audio amplifier
An audio power amplifier (or power amp) electronic amplifier, amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup (music technology), pickup, to a level that is high enough for dr ...
which is also not involved in the computational processes.
See also
*
Digital electronics
Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. It deals with the relationship between Binary number, binary inputs and outputs by passing electrical s ...
References
Electronic engineering
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