The steady-state abstraction

• The memory of a system is its state

• Changes in state occur at specific times

  • The clock determines when states can change
  • The clock period is the time between state changes

• The clk period must be long enough for all voltages to stabilize

  • Critical path: The last path to stabilize its voltage

• The steady-state abstraction: We only care about logic voltages near a clock edge

  • We ignore the EE stuff that happens between clock edges

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