A digital circuit design technique facilitates faster multiplication of signed binary numbers. It leverages a recoding scheme to reduce the number of partial product additions required in the conventional multiplication process. For example, instead of adding partial products for each ‘1’ in the multiplier, this method groups consecutive ‘1’s and performs additions/subtractions based on the group boundaries. This approach reduces the computational complexity, particularly beneficial when dealing with long sequences of ‘1’s in the multiplier.
This optimized multiplication process plays a crucial role in various applications demanding high-performance arithmetic operations. Its efficiency contributes significantly to reducing power consumption and improving overall processing speed in computer systems. Developed by Andrew Donald Booth in the 1950s, it was initially used to improve the speed of desk calculators. Its relevance has persisted and even grown with the advancement of digital computing and the increasing demand for efficient hardware implementations.