Boolean Unit Subcomponents


The design of the boolean unit is very simple, using only basic gates stacked in eight-bit patterns. The basic scheme follows the below block diagram.


The select inputs to the multiplexer are the low-order bits of the opcode. These bits select as follows:

OP1OP0Function
00AND(A,B)
01NOT(A)
10OR(A,B)
11XOR(A,B)
In order to minimize the amount of routing needed, this multiplexer is distributed across the AND, OR, NOT, and XOR subcells. Each 8-bit logic block is followed by an 8-bit transmission gate, controlled by a single select input. A separate logic unit generates these four select inputs: AND_SEL, OR_SEL, NOT_SEL, and XOR_SEL. The logic for this unit consists of four NORs that effectively perform a 2-4 decode of the low-order opcode bits.