Exclusive OR Gate

This post is labeled under Digital Design


Exclusive OR gate (shortened as XOR) is a simplification of AND, OR, NOT gates where logic-1 or high output is obtained if its both inputs are high but not the same time. Complement of Exclusive OR is Exclusive NOR (shortened as XNOR) where the output of the XOR is negated.

Although NAND and NOR gates are available with several input lines, XOR and XNOR are typically available with only two input lines. We may avail of using this gates using IC Package 7486.


Experiment 3 provides as laboratory manual on how XOR operates. It provides connection with other basic logic gates. I suggest you visit first Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 and perform the two before proceeding with Experiment Number 3. Some of simplified instructions stated on Experiment 3 were all well-discussed and shown in the two prior experiments.
Exclusive or Gate Experiment 3

There is also a video blog on how to setup a prototyping board experiment. Visit this if you are new on setting up digital experiments.

Exclusive OR is useful in understanding and simplifying half adder and full adder circuits. Knowing its logic operation can be used as substitute in Boolean equations thus reducing the number of gates to use on our design.

Hope this helps and please let me know if you have comments or find it useful.