The Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) represents the foundational combinational execution engine of a central processor, executing integer arithmetic and bitwise logical primitives. Operands A and B pass into parallel hardware slices—including parallel adders, shifters, AND, OR, and XOR arrays—selected by an incoming opcode control word. In addition to delivering numerical results, the unit computes conditional status flags (Zero, Negative, Carry, Overflow) that drive program branching.