A NAND gate is a logic gate that performs the Boolean operation of the logical "NOT AND" (NAND). It takes two or more inputs and gives an output that is the negation of the logical conjunction (AND) of those inputs. In other words, if any of the inputs are false, the output is true. A NAND gate is considered a universal component because it can be used to implement any other logic gate. This means that any logical function can be constructed using only NAND gates. This property is known as functional completeness. To understand why NAND gates are universal, let's consider how they can be used to create other basic logic gates: 1. NOT Gate: A NAND gate with both inputs tied together will act as a NOT gate, as it will invert the input. 2. AND Gate: By connecting two or more NAND gates in series (feeding their outputs into another NAND gate), we can achieve an AND operation. The first set of NAND gates act as inverters for their respective input signals, and then these inverted signals are combined using another NAND gate acting as an OR gate. 3. OR Gate: A combination of three NAND gates can be used to create an OR operation. Two of them perform NOT operations on their respective inputs, and then a third one performs an AND operation on these inverted signals. By combining multiple NAND gates in various configurations, all other basic logic gates like NOR, XOR, XNOR, etc., along with complex digital circuits such as adders, multiplexers, and flip-flops can be created. Hence, a single component like a NAND gate can serve as a building block for almost any digital circuitry, making it universally useful in digital electronics design. # References ```dataview Table title as Title, authors as Authors where contains(subject, "NAND") or contains(subject, "nand") ```