<
https://insidehpc.com/2017/02/john-gustafson-presents-beyond-floating-point-next-generation-computer-arithmetic/>
“A new data type called a “posit” is designed for direct drop-in replacement
for IEEE Standard 754 floats. Unlike unum arithmetic, posits do not require
interval-type mathematics or variable size operands, and they round if an
answer is inexact, much the way floats do. However, they provide compelling
advantages over floats, including simpler hardware implementation that scales
from as few as two-bit operands to thousands of bits. For any bit width, they
have a larger dynamic range, higher accuracy, better closure under arithmetic
operations, and simpler exception-handling. For example, posits never overflow
to infinity or underflow to zero, and there is no “Not-a-Number” (NaN) value.
Posits should take up less space to implement in silicon than an IEEE float of
the same size. With fewer gate delays per operation as well as lower silicon
footprint, the posit operations per second (POPS) supported by a chip can be
significantly higher than the FLOPs using similar hardware resources. GPU
accelerators, in particular, could do more arithmetic per watt and per dollar
yet deliver superior answer quality.”
Via Hank G.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
