Decimal and binary floating point arithmetic calculations

A logic device comprising:

• arithmetic logic circuitry for performing decimal and binary floating point arithmetic calculations on a first operand and a second operand, wherein the first operand and the second operand are both in either decimal or binary floating point format, and the first operand has a first magnitude and a second operand has a second magnitude, the arithmetic logic unit being configured to implement a method comprising:
• receiving the first operand and the second operand in packed format;
• unpacking the first operand and the second operand;
• swapping the first operand to a fourth operand and the second operand to a third operand, if an exponent of the first operand is less than an exponent of the second operand, otherwise storing the first operand to a third operand and the second operand to a fourth operand;
• aligning the third operand and the fourth operand based on the exponent difference of the third and fourth operand and a number of leading zeroes of the third operand;
• performing an add/subtract operation on the aligned third operand and the aligned fourth operand with normalizing and rounding between the third operand and the fourth operand;
• and
• packing a result obtained from the performing for the add/subtract operation.

A computer program product for performing decimal and binary floating point arithmetic calculations on a first operand and a second operand, wherein the first operand and the second operand are both in either decimal or binary floating point format, and the first operand has a first magnitude and the second operand has a second magnitude, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions being executable by a processor to cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
• receiving the first operand and the second operand in packed format;
• unpacking the first operand and the second operand;
• swapping the first operand to a fourth operand and the second operand to a third operand, if an exponent of the first operand is less than an exponent of the second operand, otherwise storing the first operand to a third operand and the second operand to a fourth operand;
• aligning the third operand and the fourth operand based on the exponent difference of the third and fourth operand and a number of leading zeroes of the third operand;
• performing an add/subtract operation on the aligned third operand and the aligned fourth operand with normalizing and rounding between the third operand and the fourth operand;
• and
• packing a result obtained from the performing for the add/subtract operation.