Image fusion has long relied on conventional signal processing techniques like discrete wavelet transform (DWT), contourlet transform, shift-invariant shearlet transform, and quaternion wavelet transform. However, these methods can introduce artifacts into the fused image, leading to suboptimal results. To address these issues, optimization-based fusion schemes have been proposed, although they often require multiple iterations to find the optimal solution, potentially resulting in oversmoothed images. This research focuses on a hardware-oriented VLSI-based implementation of visible-infrared (VI-IR) image fusion. The process begins by reading images in the MATLAB environment and applying stationary wavelet transform to decompose VI and IR images into multiple bands. Low-low bands are converted into text files, and a band fusion rule is applied using a multiplexer-based adder to combine both images. The final fused image is reconstructed in MATLAB. Simulation results demonstrate that this proposed method offers improved performance.