Adder Visualizer

This binary adder visualizer lets you compare Ripple Carry (RCA), Carry Lookahead (CLA), Carry Select, and Carry Save adder architectures side by side. Animate carry propagation step by step to see why some adders are faster than others, and compare their gate count, delay, and area-delay tradeoffs at different bit widths.

• Enter two operands (A and B) in decimal, bin (0b1010), octal (0o200) or hex (0xFF). For Carry Save, a third operand C appears.
• Select bit width (4, 8, 16, or 32) and check which architectures to compare.
• Click Compute to calculate the result, then use the playback controls to animate carry propagation.
• The race view shows all selected architectures simultaneously — watch CLA finish while RCA is still rippling.
• Step (▶|) advances one gate delay at a time. The description below each diagram explains the current step.
• The summary table compares area (gate count), delay (gate delays), and area×delay product for the current bit width.
• Carry Save reduces 3 operands to 2 in constant time, then uses a selectable final adder (RCA or CLA).
• Toggle Signed (2's complement) to interpret operands and results as signed integers. Enter negative values with a minus sign (e.g. -5). Overflow is flagged when the sign of the result is wrong (e.g. positive + positive = negative).