I am currently taking an undergraduate level computer architecture course and I am having a little bit of difficulty with a homework question. The question is asking us to determine whether or not overflow has occurred based on whether the leading digit of the binary sum is 0 or 1. If overflow occurs, the final output is supposed to be 1. If it does not, the output should be 0.

 

Honestly, I am not sure where to begin with this. I was considering using an adder and feeding the output into a MUX as the operational line, but then I wasn't sure what I'd use as inputs. I'm assuming that an adder and MUX are the correct tools to use, but I guess I'm just unsure about the entire concept. Any help out there?

Is the sum output in a parallel data bus or serial data ?

Is the sum output in a parallel data bus or serial data ?

 

The problem does not specify.