Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for improving the performance of a floating point multiplier accumulator

US6820106B1 · kind B1 · utility

8Cited by
1References
23Claims
0Family size

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Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 27, 2000
Grant dateNov 16, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 20, 2022

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F7/74
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus to increase the performance of a floating point multiplier accumulator (FMAC). The method comprises receiving three floating point numbers and computing a product of the first floating point number and the second floating point number and adding a third floating point number to produce a sum value and a carry value. A propagate value, a kill value and a generate value are then computed based on the sum value and the carry value. Simultaneously the sum value is added to the carry value to create a first result, the sum value is added to the carry value and incremented by one to create a second result, the sum value is added to the carry value and incremented by two to create a third result, and a decimal point position is determined. One of the first result, the second result and the third result is then selected responsive to a rounding mode and the decimal point position. The selected result is normalized based on the decimal point position. The apparatus comprises a multiplier with a propagate, kill, generate generator (PKG generator) coupled to it. An adder, a plus-oner, a plus-two-er and a leading zero anticipator (LZA) are each coupled to the PKG generat…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.