Schmitt Trigger

Sometimes an input signal to a digital circuit doesn't directly fit the description of a digital signal. For various reasons it may have slow rise and/or fall times, or may have acquired some noise that could be sensed by further circuitry. It may even be an analog signal whose frequency we want to measure. All of these conditions, and many others, require a specialized circuit that will "clean up" a signal and force it to true digital shape.

The required circuit is called a Schmitt Trigger. It has two possible states just like other multivibrators. However, the trigger for this circuit to change states is the input voltage level, rather than a digital pulse. That is, the output state depends on the input level, and will change only as the input crosses a pre-defined threshold.

The benefit of a Schmitt trigger over a circuit with only a single input threshold is greater stability (noise immunity). With only one input threshold, a noisy input signal near that threshold could cause the output to switch rapidly back and forth from noise alone. A noisy Schmitt Trigger input signal near one threshold can cause only one switch in output value, after which it would have to move to the other threshold in order to cause another switch.