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FLOATING-POINT UNIT

There are many data processing applications (e.g., image and voice processing), which use a large range of values and need a relatively high precision. In such cases, instead of encoding the information in the form of integers or fixed-point numbers, an alternative solution is a floating-point representation (Chapter 3). In the first section of this chapter, a method is proposed for defining a particular floating-point representation system as a function of the application specification. The next section is devoted to the algorithms for executing the basic arithmetic operations. The two following sections define the main rounding methods and introduce the concept of guard digit. Finally, the last few sections propose basic implementations of the arithmetic operations, namely, addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root.