NOR Gate

The NOR gate is a logic gate that outputs a logic “0” in all combinations of its inputs except when they are all logic “0”, in this case the output is a logic “1”.

See the truth tables in diagrams below.

There are two accepted symbols for this gate. One of the American standard (ANSI) and another of the European standard (IEC).

A NOR gate can be implemented by concatenating an OR gate with a NOT gate, as shown in the following image.

From the previous image it can be seen that the output of the OR gate is: X = A + B. This output is passed through the inverter or NOT gate and is obtained: X = A + B.

NOR Gate Truth Table

As in the case of the OR gate, this gate can be found in versions with 2, 3 or more inputs.

• In TTL technology: 7402 (2 inputs), 7427 (3 inputs), etc.
• In CMOS technology: 4001 (2 inputs), 4025 (3 inputs), etc.

Truth tables for these two types of gates are as follows:

As you can see, the output X is only “1”, when all the inputs are “0”.

How to create a NOT gate with a NOR gate?

Like the NAND logic gate, an interesting case of this gate is when inputs A and B or A, B and C (in the case of a 3-input NOR gate) are joined, to get a single input. In this case the output (X) has exactly the opposite value of the input. View the first and last rows of the truth tables above.

In other words: With a NOR gate you can get the behavior of a NOT gate.

Below is the internal layout of the 7427 TTL IC which has triple 3-input NOR gates. These gates have the 3-input truth table shown in a previous image.