Adder (electronics) - Half Adder

The half adder adds two single binary digits A and B. It has two outputs, sum (S) and carry (C). The carry signal represents an overflow into the next digit of a multi-digit addition. The value of the sum is 2C + S. The simplest half-adder design, pictured on the right, incorporates an XOR gate for S and an AND gate for C. With the addition of an OR gate to combine their carry outputs, two half adders can be combined to make a full adder.