Any OR gate can be constructed with two or more inputs. It outputs a 1 if any of these inputs are 1, or outputs a 0 only if all inputs are 0. The inputs and outputs are binary digits ("
bits") which have two possible
logical states. In addition to 1 and 0, these states may be called true and false, high and low, active and inactive, or other such pairs of symbols. Thus it performs a
logical disjunction (∨) from
mathematical logic. The gate can be represented with the plus sign (+) because it can be used for
logical addition. Equivalently, an OR gate finds the
maximum between two binary digits, just as the
AND gate finds the
minimum. Together with the
AND gate and the
NOT gate, the OR gate is one of three basic logic gates from which any
Boolean circuit may be constructed. All other
logic gates may be made from these three gates; any function in binary mathematics may be implemented with them. It is sometimes called the
inclusive OR gate to distinguish it from
XOR, the exclusive OR gate. The behavior of OR is the same as XOR except in the case of a 1 for both inputs. In situations where this never arises (for example, in a
full-adder) the two types of gates are interchangeable. This substitution is convenient when a circuit is being implemented using simple
integrated circuit chips which contain only one gate type per chip. ==Symbols==