XOR gate
- noun
- /ɛks ɔr ɡeɪt/
- Specialized
- An XOR gate will turn on the light only if either switch is pressed, but not both.
Examples
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So if we have our carry coming in here, we send that into the XOR gate and this will be the sum that we put at the bottom here.
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And again, we'll take the outputs of these two XOR gates around to the two inputs of an XOR gate on the top and hook an LED up to that one.
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The circuit uses a XOR gate to ensure the output is high only when one input is active.
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To create the desired logic function, we connected an XOR gate to the two sensor outputs.
Synonyms
An electronic circuit that gives an on output only when an odd number of its inputs are on
A circuit that sends a signal when two inputs are different
Surface Forms
Morphology
XOR + gate
The phrase is compositionally formed from the operator name 'XOR' (exclusive OR) plus 'gate' (a logic device), so a learner who already knows 'XOR' as the exclusive-or operator and the meaning of 'gate' can infer it denotes a circuit implementing that operator. However 'XOR' is a technical abbreviation and the exact behavior (e.g. ‘‘outputs high only when an odd number of inputs are high'') requires background in digital logic, so the relation is partly but not fully transparent to general learners.
Etymology
The electronic device XOR gate works like a lamp with two switches: the lamp lights only when one switch is on, not when both are on. That is why a XOR, short for 'exclusive OR', gate gives a high output only when the inputs are 'different', so it is used to check when signals do not match.