Saturday 3 September 2011

Arithmetic & Logic Unit (ALU)

An arithmetic and logical unit (ALU) also known as “Integer Unit” is one of the core
components of all central processing units. It is capable of calculating the results of a
wide variety of common computations. The most common available operations are the
integer arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, and multiplication, the bitwise
logic operations of AND, NOT, OR, and XOR, and various shift operations. 
The ALU takes as inputs the data to be operated on and a code from the control unit
indicating which operation to perform, and for output provides the result of the
computation. In some designs it may also take as input and output a set of condition
codes, which can be used to indicate cases such as carry-in or carry-out, overflow, or
other statuses.
The new breed of popular microprocessors have not one but two almost identical ALU’s
that can do calculations simultaneously, doubling the capability.

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