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US 6,289,365 B1Granted
System and method for floating-point computation
AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.
InventorGuy L. Steele, Jr.
Life of this patent
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AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.
InventorGuy L. Steele, Jr.
Estimating the term…
A system is disclosed for performing floating point computation in connection with numbers in a base floating point representation (such as the representation defined in IEEE Std. 754) that defines a plurality of formats, including a normalized format and a de-normalized format, using a common floating point representation that defines a unitary normalized format. The system includes a base to common representation converter, a processor and a common to base representation converter. The base to common representation converter converts numbers from the base floating point representation to the common floating point representation, so that all numbers involved in a computation will be expressed in the unitary normalized format. The processor is configured to perform a mathematical operation of at least one predetermined type in connection with the converted numbers generated by the base to common representation converter to generate a floating point result in the common representation. The common to base representation converter converts numbers from the common floating point representation selectively to either the normalized or denormalized format of the base representation.
A system for performing floating point computation in connection with numbers in a base floating point representation that defines a plurality of formats, including a normalized format and a de-normalized format, the system comprising:
A base to common representation converter for converting floating point numbers from a base floating point representation that defines a plurality of formats, including a normalized format and a de-normalized format, to a common representation defining a unitary normalized format, the unitary normalized format being used both for numbers that, in the base floating point representation, were in the normalized format and numbers that, in the base floating point representation, were in the de-normalized format, each floating point number in said base floating point representation and said common floating point representation including an exponent field and a fraction field, the base to common representation converter comprising:
A method of converting floating point numbers from a base floating point representation that defines a plurality of formats, including a normalized format and a de-normalized format, to a common representation defining a unitary normalized format, the unitary normalized format being used both for numbers that, in the base floating point representation, were in the normalized format and numbers that, in the base floating point representation, were in the de-normalized format, each floating point number in said base floating point representation and said common floating point representation including an exponent field and a fraction field, the base to common representation conversion method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.