Square wave Totally Explained

A square wave is a kind of non-sinusoidal waveform, most typically encountered in electronics and signal processing. An ideal square wave alternates regularly and instantaneously between two levels.

Origins and uses

Square waves are universally encountered in digital switching circuits and are naturally generated by binary (two-level) logic devices. They are used as timing references or "clock signals", because their fast transitions are suitable for triggering synchronous logic circuits at precisely determined intervals. However, as the frequency-domain graph shows, square waves contain a wide range of harmonics; these can generate electromagnetic radiation or pulses of current that interfere with other nearby circuits, causing noise or errors. To avoid this problem in very sensitive circuits such as precision analog-to-digital converters, sine waves are used instead of square waves as timing references.
In musical terms, they're often described as sounding hollow, and are therefore used as the basis for wind instrument sounds created using subtractive synthesis. Additionally, the distortion effect used on electric guitar clips the outermost regions of the waveform, causing it to increasingly resemble a square wave as more distortion is applied.
Simple two-level Rademacher functions are square waves.

Examining the square wave

In contrast to the sawtooth wave, which contains all integer harmonics, the square wave contains only odd integer harmonics.
Using Fourier series we can write an ideal square wave as an infinite series of the form ť

x_

when ť

x(t + T) = x(t)

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