Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index A barrel shifter is a hardware device that can shift or rotate a data word by any number of bits in a single operation. It is implemented like a multiplexor, each output can be connected to any input depending on the shift distance. This article was originally based on material from FOLDOC, used with permission. Update as needed. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.