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FPL
2006
Springer

Architectural Modifications to Improve Floating-Point Unit Efficiency in FPGAs

13 years 7 months ago
Architectural Modifications to Improve Floating-Point Unit Efficiency in FPGAs
FPGAs have reached densities that can implement floatingpoint applications, but floating-point operations still require a large amount of FPGA resources. One major component of IEEE compliant floating-point computations is variable length shifters. They account for over 30% of a doubleprecision floating-point adder and 25% of a doubleprecision multiplier. This paper introduces two alternatives for implementing these shifters. One alternative is a coarsegrained approach: embedding variable length shifters in the FPGA fabric. These units provide significant area savings with a modest clock rate improvement over existing architectures. Another alternative is a fine-grained approach: adding a 4:1 multiplexer inside the slices, in parallel to the LUTs. While providing a more modest area savings, these multiplexers provide a significant boost in clock rate with a small impact on the FPGA fabric.
Michael J. Beauchamp, Scott Hauck, Keith D. Underw
Added 22 Aug 2010
Updated 22 Aug 2010
Type Conference
Year 2006
Where FPL
Authors Michael J. Beauchamp, Scott Hauck, Keith D. Underwood, K. Scott Hemmert
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