Static discipline

In a digital circuit or system, static discipline is a guarantee on logical elements that "if inputs meet valid input thresholds, then the system guarantees outputs will meet valid output thresholds", named by Stephen A. Ward and Robert H. Halstead in 1990, but practiced for decades earlier.^[1]

The valid output thresholds voltages V_OH (output high) and V_OL (output low), and valid input thresholds V_IH (input high) and V_IL (input low), satisfy a robustness principle such that

V_OL < V_IL < V_IH < V_OH

with sufficient noise margins in the inequalities.^[2]