Array or Binary Multiplier
Need of a fast multiplier
• Checking the bits of the multiplier one at a time and forming partial products is a
sequential operation that requires a sequence of add and shift microoperations.
• The multiplication of two binary numbers can be done with one microoperation by
means of a combinational circuit that forms the product bits all at once.
• This is a fast way of multiplying two numbers since all it takes is the time for the
signals to propagate through the gates that form the multiplication array.
• However, an array multiplier requires a large number of gates, and for this reason it
was not economical until the development of integrated circuits.
Hardware Implementation of Array Multiplier (2 bit Multiplicand and 2 bit Multiplier):
• Consider the multiplication of two 2-bit numbers.
• The multiplicand bits are B1 and B0, the multiplier bits are A1 and A0, and the
product is C3C2C1C0.
• The first partial product is formed by multiplying B1B0 by A0.
• The multiplication of two bits such as A0 and B0 produces a 1 if both bits are 1;
otherwise, it produces a 0.
• This is identical to an AND operation and partial product can be implemented with
AND gates.
• The second partial product is formed by multiplying B1B0 by A1 and shifting one
position to the left.
• The two partial products are added with two half-adder (HA) circuits.
• If there are more bits in the partial products, then use full adders to produce the
sum of the partial products.
• Note: the least significant bit of the product does not have to go through an adder,
since it is formed by the output of the first AND gate.
• A combinational circuit binary multiplier with more bits can be constructed in a
similar fashion.
• A bit of the multiplier is ANDed with each bit of the multiplicand in as many levels as
there are bits in the multiplier.
• The binary output in each level of AND gates is added with the partial product of the
previous level to form a new partial product.
• The last level produces the product.
• In general, for J multiplier bits and K multiplicand bits, we need (J x K) AND gates
and (J – 1) K -bit adders to produce a product of (J + K) bits.
Hardware Implementation of Array Multiplier (4 bit by 3 bit binary multiplier):
• Example: consider a multiplier circuit that multiplies a binary number represented by
four bits by a number represented by three bits.
• Let the multiplicand be represented by B3B2B1B0 and the multiplier by A2A1A0.
• Since K = 4 and J = 3, we need 12 AND gates and two 4-bit adders to produce a
product of seven bits.
• The logic diagram of the multiplier is shown below.