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A digital comparator or magnitude comparator is a hardware electronic device that takes two numbers as input in binary form and determines whether one number is greater than, less than or equal to the other number. Comparators are used in central processing units (CPUs) and microcontrollers (MCUs). Examples of digital comparator include the CMOS 4063 and 4585 and the TTL 7485 and 74682.
An XNOR gate is a basic comparator, because its output is "1" only if its two input bits are equal.
The analog equivalent of digital comparator is the voltage comparator. Many microcontrollers have analog comparators on some of their inputs that can be read or trigger an interrupt.