Article View: comp.arch
Article #12016IBM floating point using logarithms
From: Jim McGuire
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1991 17:18
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1991 17:18
27 lines
1369 bytes
1369 bytes
In the "Technology" section, EE Times, June 3, page 29 there is an article discussing a floating point coprocessor design done at IBM's Watson research center. Some quotes: "The Hybrid Number Execution Unit uses a time-honored computational aid - logarithms - to amplify the performance of basic operations" "The key to the hybrid computational unit is a new approach to representing logarithms that closely parallels the IEEE P754 32-bit floating-point format." "The result is a conversion method simple enough to cast in hardware..." "Computer simulations indicate that multiplication, division, squaring, and square root can all be performed by the coprocessor in 10 nanoseconds." After all the discussion we've had lately over floating point, I expected some discussion of this. So does anyone have comments? -- Jim McGuire, Solbourne Computer Speaking for mcguire@solbourne.com myself only!
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arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!uunet!stan!McGuireShow Full Headers
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!uunet!stan!McGuire From: McGuire@solbourne.com (Jim McGuire) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: IBM floating point using logarithms Message-ID: <1991Jun10.171824.10980@solbourne.com> Date: 10 Jun 91 17:18:24 GMT Sender: McGuire@solbourne.com (Jim McGuire) Organization: Solbourne Computer, Inc., Longmont, CO Lines: 27