Checksum adder

A method comprising:

• driving a multifunction compression tree disposed on a circuit path and comprising n bit circuits arranged in a sequence, wherein n≥3, a lowest numbered bit circuit is bit0 and a highest numbered bit circuit is bitn−1 based on a control bit to execute one of fixed point vector input addition and checksum vector input addition, wherein the driving of the multifunction compression tree comprises:
• receiving an input of three vector inputs;
• outputting a zeroth level carry-out and a zeroth level sum;
• receiving an input of two vector inputs and a first level carry-in;
• outputting a first level carry-out and a first level sum;
• receiving an input of the zeroth level and first level sums and a second level carry-in derived from the first level carry-out;
• outputting a carry term and a sum term;
• ANDing the control bit along with the zeroth level carry-out;
• and
• ANDing the control bit along with the first level carry-out;
• and
• driving a multifunction adder disposed on the circuit path based on the control bit to perform the one of the fixed point vector input addition and checksum vector input addition, wherein the multifunction adder comprises a fixed point addition adder in parallel with a checksum addition adder and a multiplexer controllable to generate an output of either the fixed point addition adder or the checksum addition adder upon receipt of an output of the multifunction compression tree at the fixed point addition adder and the checksum addition adder.