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FFrontiers in Computing and Intelligent Systems3/27/2026

Ripple-Carry Vs Carry-Lookahead: A Study of Delay–Area–Power Trade-Offs

Huawei Liu
Since adders are located on the critical paths of arithmetic units, the choice between Ripple-Carry Adders (RCA) and Carry-Lookahead Adders (CLA) has first-order impacts on clock frequency, silicon area, and energy. This paper takes a look back at RCA/CLA and all its variants to see what has happened recently (2021–2025). The research summarizes results from publicly available, peer-reviewed research on EDP, area, power, and improved CLA structures (e.g., hierarchical and non-uniform grouping),
Read at Frontiers in Computing and Intelligent Systems
Tags
Low-power high-performance VLSI designElectrical and Electronic EngineeringAdderSelection (genetic algorithm)Word (group theory)Asynchronous communicationRouting (electronic design automation)