The purpose of this experiment is to design and implement combinatorial logic that will decode a 4-bit BCD input to a seven segment LED display.

Binary Coded Decimal (BCD or “8421” BCD) numbers are made up using just 4 data bits (a nibble or half a byte) similar to the Hexadecimal numbers we saw in the binary tutorial, but unlike hexadecimal numbers that range in full from 0 through to F, BCD numbers only range from 0 to 9, with the binary number patterns of 1010 through to 1111 (A to F) being invalid inputs for this type of display and so are not used.

BCD to 7-Segment Display Decoders

A binary coded decimal (BCD) to 7-segment display decoder such as the TTL 74LS47 or 74LS48, have 4 BCD inputs and 7 output lines, one for each LED segment. This allows a smaller 4-bit binary number (half a byte) to be used to display all the denary numbers from 0 to 9 and by adding two displays together, a full range of numbers from 00 to 99 can be displayed with just a single byte of 8 data bits.