This study presents efficient algorithms for performing multiply-by-3 (3N) and divide-by-3 (N/3) operations with the additions and subtractions, respectively. No multiplications and divisions are needed. Full adder (FA) and full subtractor (FS) can be implemented to realize the N3 and N/3 operations, respectively. For fast hardware implementation, this paper introduces two basic cells UCA and UCS for 3N and N/3 operations, respectively. For 3N operation, the UCA-based ripple carry adder (RCA) and carry lookahead adder (CLA) designs are proposed and their speed performances are estimated based on the delay data of standard cell library in TSMC 0.18µm CMOS process. Results show that the 16-bit UCA-based RCA is about 3 times faster than the conventional FA-based RCA and even 25% faster than the FA-based CLA. The proposed 16-bit and 64-bit UCA-based CLAs are 62% and 36% faster than the conventional FA-based CLAs, respectively. For N/3 operations, ripple borrow subtractor (RBS) is also presented. The 16-bit UCS-based RBS is about 15.5% faster than the 16-bit FS-based RBS.

A constant multiplier performs a multiplication of a data-input with a constant value. Constant multipliers are essential components in various types of arithmetic circuits, such as filters in digital signal processor (DSP) units, and they are prevalent in modern VLSI designs. This study presents an efficient algorithm and fast hardware implementation for performing multiply-by-(1+2k) operation with additions. No multiplications are needed. The value of (1+2k)N can be computed by adding N to its k-bit left-shifted value 2kN. The additions can be performed by the full-adder-based (FA-based) ripple carry adder (RCA) for simple architecture. This paper introduces the unit cells for additions (UCAs) to construct the UCA-based RCA which achieves 35% faster than the FA-based RCA in speed performance. Further, in order to improve the speed performance, a simple and modular hybrid adder is presented with the proposed UCA concept, where the carry lookahead adder (CLA) as a module and many of the CLA modules are serially connected in a fashion similar to the RCA. Results show that the hybrid adder significantly improves the speed performance.