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Barrel shifter
A barrel shifter is a digital circuit that can shift a data word by a
specified number of bits without the use of any sequential logic, only
pure combinational logic. One way to implement it is as a sequence of
multiplexers where the output of one multiplexer is connected to the
input of the next multiplexer in a way that depends on the shift
distance. A barrel shifter is often used to shift and rotate n-bits in
modern microprocessors, typically within a single clock cycle.

For example, take a four-bit barrel shifter, with inputs A, B, C and D.

The shifter can cycle the order of the bits ABCD as DABC, CDAB, or
BCDA; in this case, no bits are lost. That is, it can shift all of the Schematic of a 4-bit crossbar barrel
outputs up to three positions to the right (and thus make any cyclic shifter. x denotes input bits and y denotes
combination of A, B, C and D). The barrel shifter has a variety of output bits.

applications, including being a useful component in microprocessors

(alongside the ALU).

Contents
Implementation
Cost
Uses
See also
References
External links
Further reading

Implementation
A barrel shifter is often implemented as a cascade of parallel 2×1 multiplexers. For an 8-bit barrel shifter, two
intermediate signals are used which shifts by four and two bits, or passes the same data, based on the value of S[2] and
S[1]. This signal is then shifted by another multiplexer, which is controlled by S[0]:

int1 = IN , if S[2] == 0
= IN << 4, if S[2] == 1
int2 = int1 , if S[1] == 0
= int1 << 2, if S[1] == 1
OUT = int2 , if S[0] == 0
= int2 << 1, if S[0] == 1

Larger barrel shifters have additional stages.

Cost
The number of multiplexers required for an n-bit word is .[1] Five common word sizes and the number of
multiplexers needed are listed below:

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128-bit —
64-bit —
32-bit —
16-bit —
8-bit —

Cost of critical path in FO4 (estimated, without wire delay):

32-bit: from 18 FO4 to 14 FO4[2]

Uses
A common usage of a barrel shifter is in the hardware implementation of floating-point arithmetic. For a floating-
point add or subtract operation, the significands of the two numbers must be aligned, which requires shifting the
smaller number to the right, increasing its exponent, until it matches the exponent of the larger number. This is done
by subtracting the exponents and using the barrel shifter to shift the smaller number to the right by the difference, in
one cycle. If a simple shifter were used, shifting by n bit positions would require n clock cycles.

See also
Circular shift

References
1. Kroening, Daniel; Strichman, Ofer (2008). Decision Procedures. Springer. p. 159. ISBN 978-3-540-74104-6.
2. Wang, David T. (2002-08-15). "Revisiting the FO4 Metric" (http://www.realworldtech.com/fo4-metric/4/). Retrieved
2016-05-19.

External links
Barrel-shifter (8 bit) (https://tams.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/applets/hades/webdemos/10-gates/60-barrel/shifter8.
html), University of Hamburg
Implementing Barrel Shifters Using Multipliers (http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/application_notes/xa
pp195.pdf) (Paul Gigliotti, 2004-08-17)

Further reading
Kroening, Daniel; Strichman, Ofer (2008). Decision Procedures. Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-74104-6.
This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under
the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.

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