A power operation device comprises a bit operation unit or performing a bit shift operation on a logarithmic base bit string from a logarithm operation unit according to an input exponent bit string Y, and for furnishing the shifted logarithmic base bit string as a multiplication bit string. An exponent checking unit checks whether or not the input exponent bit string Y is the ith power of a base 2 where i is an integer, and, if so, furnishes a selection signal to direct selection of the multiplication bit string from the bit operation unit. A multiplication bit string selection unit selects and furnishes the multiplication bit string when it receives the selection signal from the exponent checking unit. In contrast, the multiplication bit string selection unit selects and furnishes another multiplication bit string from a multiplier otherwise. An exponential operation unit performs a base-2 exponential operation on the selected multiplication bit string from the multiplication bit string selection unit, i.e., computes 2Z where Z is the selected multiplication bit string, and furnishes the computed base-2 exponential value as the power operation-result XY.