By connecting the last flip-flop back to the first, the data can cycle within the shifters for extended periods, and in this configuration they were used as computer memory, displacing delay-line memory systems in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They share a single clock signal, which causes the data stored in the system to shift from one location to the next. Computer memory unit using cascaded flip-flopsĪ shift register is a type of digital circuit using a cascade of flip-flops where the output of one flip-flop is connected to the input of the next.
