Introduction to JK Flip Flop

Number one, the S = 0 and R = 0 condition (S = R = 0) must always be avoided, and number two, if S or R change state while the enable input is high the correct latching action may not occur. Then to overcome these two fundamental design problems with the SR flip-flop design, the JK flip Flop was developed.

This simple JK flip Flop is the most widely used of all the flip-flop designs and is considered to be a universal flip-flop circuit. The sequential operation of the JK flip flop is exactly the same as for the previous SR flip-flop with the same “Set” and “Reset” inputs. The difference this time is that the “JK flip flop” has no invalid or forbidden input states of the SR Latch even when S and R are both at logic “1”.

The JK flip flop is basically a gated SR flip-flop with the addition of a clock input circuitry that prevents the illegal or invalid output condition that can occur when both inputs S and R are equal to logic level “1”. Due to this additional clocked input, a JK flip-flop has four possible input combinations, “logic 1”, “logic 0”, “no change” and “toggle”. The symbol for a JK flip flop is similar to that of an SR Bistable Latch as seen in the previous tutorial except for the addition of a clock input.