International Business Machines Corporation
Low latency floating-point division operations

Abstract:

Methods and systems for division operation are described. A processor can initialize an estimated quotient between the dividend and the divisor separately from a floating-point unit (FPU) pipeline. The processor can implement the FPU pipeline to execute a refinement process that can include at least a first iteration of operations and a second iteration of operations. The refinement process can include, in the first iteration of operations, generating a first unnormalized floating-point value using the initialized estimated quotient. The refinement process can include, in the second iteration of operations, generating a second unnormalized floating-point value using the first unnormalized floating-point value. The processor can determine a final quotient based on the second unnormalized floating-point value.