The K5 transcendental functions

This paper describes the development of the transcendental instructions for the K5, AMD´s recently completed x86 compatible superscalar microprocessor. A multi-level development cycle, with testing between levels, facilitated the early detection of errors and limited their effect on the design schedule. The algorithms for the transcendental functions use table-driven reductions followed by polynomial approximations. Multiprecision arithmetic operations are used when necessary to maintain sufficient accuracy and to ensure that the transcendental functions have a maximum error of one unit in the last place