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Mixed-precision Arithmetic
Mixed-precision arithmetic is a form of floating-point arithmetic that uses numbers with varying widths in a single operation. Overview A common usage of mixed-precision arithmetic is for operating on inaccurate numbers with a small width and expanding them to a larger, more accurate representation. For example, two half-precision or bfloat16 (16-bit) floating-point numbers may be multiplied together to result in a more accurate single-precision (32-bit) float. In this way, mixed-precision arithmetic approximates arbitrary-precision arithmetic, albeit with a low number of possible precisions. Iterative algorithms (like gradient descent) are good candidates for mixed-precision arithmetic. In an iterative algorithm like square root, a coarse integral guess can be made and refined over many iterations until the error in precision makes it such that the smallest addition or subtraction to the guess is still too coarse to be an acceptable answer. When this happens, the precision can b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floating-point Arithmetic
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a Sign (mathematics), signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some Radix, base) multiplied by an integer power of that base. Numbers of this form are called floating-point numbers. For example, the number 2469/200 is a floating-point number in base ten with five digits: 2469/200 = 12.345 = \! \underbrace_\text \! \times \! \underbrace_\text\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\overbrace^ However, 7716/625 = 12.3456 is not a floating-point number in base ten with five digits—it needs six digits. The nearest floating-point number with only five digits is 12.346. And 1/3 = 0.3333… is not a floating-point number in base ten with any finite number of digits. In practice, most floating-point systems use Binary number, base two, though base ten (decimal floating point) is also common. Floating-point arithmetic operations, such as addition and division, approximate the correspond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
