Operator sizing - addition

What this operator-sizing interview question tests

This is an easy digital design question that checks whether you understand how arithmetic operations propagate bit width in hardware and fixed-width integer systems. It appears in interviews for roles that involve RTL design, hardware verification, or low-level systems work.

The core skill is reasoning about the minimum bit width needed to represent the result of an operation without overflow or loss of information. For addition and subtraction involving inputs of different widths, the answer depends on whether you need to preserve all possible outputs or simply follow the rules of your target language or hardware description language.

• Bit width expansion in arithmetic operations
• Overflow and sign extension
• Unsigned vs. signed arithmetic