You could use sign magnitude encoding?
sign magnitude encoding is just using the msb as a sign bit, and the rest of the bits are the same. Positive or not.
sign magnitude does mean that you have 1 less number though, as 10000000 == 00000000
the bonus is that all you need is a 7 bit multiplier and just xor the two msbs.
EDIT: ah, i realise that this method was already suggested xD
maybe you could use modified binary counters instead of full adders for 2's comp conversion? It may be faster. you just need +1 and an inverted input after all.
sign magnitude encoding is just using the msb as a sign bit, and the rest of the bits are the same. Positive or not.
sign magnitude does mean that you have 1 less number though, as 10000000 == 00000000
the bonus is that all you need is a 7 bit multiplier and just xor the two msbs.
EDIT: ah, i realise that this method was already suggested xD
maybe you could use modified binary counters instead of full adders for 2's comp conversion? It may be faster. you just need +1 and an inverted input after all.