Apparatus and method for performing reciprocal estimation operation
AssigneeArm Limited
InventorsDavid Raymond LUTZ, Neil BURGESS
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Abstract
A data processing apparatus has floating-point add circuitry for performing a floating-point add operation for adding or subtracting two floating-point operands. The apparatus also has reciprocal estimation circuitry for performing a reciprocal estimation operation on a first operand to generate a reciprocal estimate value which represents an estimate of a reciprocal of a first operand or an estimate or a reciprocal of the square root of the first operand. The reciprocal estimation circuitry is physically distinct from the floating-point adder circuitry, which allows both the reciprocal estimate and the add operations to be faster.
Claims19
A data processing apparatus comprising:
- floating-point add circuitry to perform a floating-point addition operation for adding or subtracting two floating-point operands to generate a result floating-point operand;
- and
- reciprocal estimation circuitry to perform a reciprocal estimation operation on a first operand to generate a reciprocal estimate value representing an estimate of a reciprocal of the first operand or an estimate of a reciprocal of the square root of the first operand;
- wherein the reciprocal estimation circuitry is physically distinct from the floating-point add circuitry.
A data processing apparatus comprising:
- floating-point adding means for performing a floating-point addition operation for adding or subtracting two floating-point operands to generate a result floating-point operand;
- and
- reciprocal estimation means for performing a reciprocal estimation operation on a first operand to generate a reciprocal estimate value representing an estimate of a reciprocal of the first operand or an estimate of a reciprocal of the square root of the first operand;
- wherein the reciprocal estimation means is physically distinct from the floating-point adding means.
A data processing method comprising:
- performing a reciprocal estimation operation on a first operand to generate a reciprocal estimate value representing an estimate of a reciprocal of the first operand or an estimate of a reciprocal of the square root of the first operand;
- wherein the reciprocal estimation operation is performed using reciprocal estimation circuitry which is physically distinct from floating-point add circuitry for performing a floating-point addition operation for adding or subtracting two floating-point operands to generate a result floating-point operand.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.