Patent 7197104 was granted and assigned to National Semiconductor on March, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An edge counter counting both rising and falling edges of an input signal is implemented with combinational logic, without using flip-flops. The combinational logic is designed using intermediate signals and state transitions producing an output signal having a cycle corresponding to a predetermined odd or even number of input signal edges, with the logic optimized and protected against entry into “stuck” states. A low power, low gate count edge counter is thus implemented with an output signal duty cycle at least as balanced as the input counter duty cycle.