Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Variable precision floating-point multiplier
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Application No.: US16451759Application Date: 2019-06-25
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Publication No.: US10572222B2Publication Date: 2020-02-25
- Inventor: Martin Langhammer
- Applicant: Altera Corporation
- Applicant Address: US CA San Jose
- Assignee: Altera Corporation
- Current Assignee: Altera Corporation
- Current Assignee Address: US CA San Jose
- Agency: Treyz Law Group
- Agent Jason Tsai
- Main IPC: G06F7/487
- IPC: G06F7/487 ; G06F7/485

Abstract:
Integrated circuits with specialized processing blocks are provided. The specialized processing blocks may include floating-point multiplier circuits that can be configured to support variable precision. A multiplier circuit may include a first carry-propagate adder (CPA), a second carry-propagate adder (CPA), and an associated rounding circuit. The first CPA may be wide enough to handle the required precision of the mantissa. In a bridged mode, the first CPA may borrow an additional bit from the second CPA while the rounding circuit will monitor the appropriate bits to select the proper multiplier output. A parallel prefix tree operable in a non-bridged mode or the bridged mode may be used to compute multiple multiplier outputs. The multiplier circuit may also include exponent and exception handling circuitry using various masks corresponding to the desired precision width.
Public/Granted literature
- US20190324722A1 VARIABLE PRECISION FLOATING-POINT MULTIPLIER Public/Granted day:2019-10-24
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