Performance Evaluation of Ripple Carry and Carry Look-Ahead Adders: Insights from 4-bit Designs

Performance Evaluation of Ripple Carry and Carry Look-Ahead Adders: Insights from 4-bit Designs

A. Pragathi, B. Pravallika, B. Bhanu Murthy, B. Prem Kumar, B. Bhavani, Dr. Yogesh Mishra

Dept of ECE
GMR Institute of Technology
Rajam, Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract: This research evaluates the performance of two common adder structures, a 4-bit Ripple Carry Adder (RCA) and 4-bit Carry Look-Ahead Adder (CLA). RCA features a small compact design that requires minimal hardware, but its sequential propagation delay increases linearly, which leads to inefficiencies at high-speed application rates. The CLA speeds up calculations through its Generate and Propagate functions, which predict carry values in advance; therefore, it works well in high-speed arithmetic operations. The supplementary logic circuits increase hardware complexity and generate additional power consumption in systems. The analysis evaluates the operation methods, hardware needs, performance speeds, and scalability aspects before investigating the possibilities of enhancing the performance through hybrid structure designs. This research will help to develop decisions regarding efficient adder selection and design for contemporary digital computing devices.

Keywords: Ripple Carry Adder (RCA), Carry Lookahead Adder (CLA), Propagation Delay, Digital Arithmetic Circuits, High-Speed Computing.