On the distribution of exponent differences during floating point addition

Author

Pillai, R.V.K. ; Al-Khalili, D. ; Al-Khalili, A.J.

Author_Institution

Concordia Univ., Montreal, Que., Canada

Volume

1

fYear

1998

fDate

24-28 May 1998

Firstpage

105

Abstract

The paper addresses the characterization of exponent differences during floating point accumulate and multiply accumulate (MAC) operations. Our investigations suggest the existence of a class of probability density functions (pdfs) that exhibit non zero modes, describing the behavior of exponent differences. The distributions also support the hypothesis that the power consumption of floating point adders can be reduced by bypassing the adder during certain situations, that are characterized by an apriori knowledge of the final result

Keywords

adders; floating point arithmetic; probability; apriori knowledge; exponent differences; floating point accumulate; floating point adders; floating point addition; multiply accumulate operations; non zero modes; power consumption; probability density functions; Algorithm design and analysis; CMOS logic circuits; Councils; Educational institutions; Energy consumption; Equations; Logic design; Power engineering and energy; Probability density function; Scalability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1998. IEEE Canadian Conference on

Conference_Location

Waterloo, Ont.

ISSN

0840-7789

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4314-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CCECE.1998.682562

Filename

682562