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Half Adder ○꠹|Definition|1st|20260605184914-00-⌔
Adder (electronics) - Wikipedia#Half_adder
Half adder
The half adder adds two single binary digits and . It has two outputs, sum () and carry (). The carry signal represents an overflow into the next digit of a multi-digit addition. The value of the sum is . The simplest half-adder design incorporates an XOR gate for and an AND gate for . The Boolean logic for the sum (in this case ) will be whereas for the carry () will be . With the addition of an OR gate to combine their carry outputs, two half adders can be combined to make a full adder.1
The truth table for the half adder is:
Various half adder digital logic circuits:
- Half adder in action.
- Schematic of half adder implemented with one XOR gate and one AND gate.
- Schematic of half adder implemented with five NAND gates.
- Schematic symbol for a 1-bit half adder.
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
Lancaster, Geoffrey A. (2004). “10. The Software Developer’s View of the Hardware §Half Adders, §Full Adders”. Excel HSC Software Design and Development. Pascal Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-1-74125175-3. ↩
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