Register Transfer Notation (or RTN) is a way of specifying the behavior of a digital

Digital

A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...

 synchronous circuit

Synchronous circuit

A synchronous circuit is a digital circuit in which the parts are synchronized by a clock signal.In an ideal synchronous circuit, every change in the logical levels of its storage components is simultaneous. These transitions follow the level change of a special signal called the clock...

. An example of high-level RTN is Verilog

Verilog

In the semiconductor and electronic design industry, Verilog is a hardware description language used to model electronic systems. Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL , is most commonly used in the design, verification, and implementation of digital logic chips at the register-transfer level...

, and a low-level example is Register Transfer Language

Register Transfer Language

In computer science, register transfer language is a term used to describe a kind of intermediate representation that is very close to assembly language, such as that which is used in a compiler. Academic papers and textbooks also often use a form of RTL as an architecture-neutral assembly language...

.

RTN may be written as either abstract or concrete. Abstract RTN is a generic notation which does not have any specific machine implementation details. In contrast, concrete RTN is a notation which does implement specifics of the machine for which it is designed.