FLOATING-POINT ADDER CIRCUITRY WITH SUBNORMAL SUPPORT

摘要

An integrated circuit may include a floating-point adder. The adder may be implemented using a dual-path adder architecture having a near path and a far path. The near path may include a leading zero anticipator (LZA), a comparison circuit for comparing an exponent value to an LZA count, and associated circuitry for handling subnormal numbers. The far path may include a subtraction circuit for computing the difference between a received exponent value and a minimum exponent value, at least two shifters for shifting far greater and far lesser mantissa values in parallel, and associated circuitry for handling subnormal numbers. The adder may be dynamically configured to support a first mode that processes FP16 at inputs and outputs, a second mode that processes modified FP16' inputs, and a third mode that processes FP16' at inputs and outputs.