The parallelism of computation, that characterizes some operations in
residue number systems (RNS), is heavily reduced in operations as divi
sion, magnitude and sign detection, since numbers must be converted to
the weighted system thus reducing efficiency, in spite of the efforts
to speed up the conversion. In this work the problem of detecting the
sign of numbers represented in RNS is considered and a procedure is d
evised, which keeps numbers in residue notation, and requires a redund
ant modulus m(p+1) greater than or equal to 2. A sign detecting circui
t is also designed that, merely to speed up the operation, exploits a
further redundant modulus m(r) greater than or equal to p in the signe
d number representation. Circuit response time is evaluated, both from
the complexity point of view and in a finite case, where 50 gate dela
ys are estimated for a range [-2(64), 2(64) - 1]. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sc
ience B.V. All rights reserved.