The advantage of the asynchronous counter is the simplicity of the hardware. There is no combinational logic required. The disadvantage is speed. The state of the system is not established until all of the flip flops have completed their transition, which, in this case, is four flip flop delays. If the counter were larger or the clock faster, it might not reach its final state until after the next negative clock transition. In that case, its value would not be available for other parts of the system at the next clock. Also, care must be taken when using outputs from this counter since it goes through unintended states. For example, a close inspection of the timing diagram as the counter moves from state 7 to state 8, the shaded area in Figure 7.11, shows that it is in state 6, state 4, and then state 0 before flip flop D goes to 1 and it reaches state 8. These short periods are not important if the outputs are used to light a display or as the inputs to a clocked flip flop, but they could produce spikes that would trigger a flip flop if used as a clock or Count input.