Article: AMD's Jaguar Microarchitecture
By: EduardoS (no.delete@this.spam.com), April 7, 2014 4:34 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
computational_scientist (brian.bj.parker99.delete@this.gmail.com) on April 6, 2014 7:33 am wrote:
> Really? I haven't seen any evidence that 128-bit IEEE support is planned for x86 (or ARM anything else
> except IBM mainframes). If it was then x87 extended precision format truly could be made redundant.
> The 80-bit IEEE extended precision format was actually explicitly designed to be upgraded from
> 80 to 128 bits (without any software changes required)- it has the same exponent width as 128-bit
> IEEE and, indeed, in current designs is actually spilled as 128 bits in memory.
My understanding is that the 128-bit IEEE doesn't have the significand bit wich makes compatibility between both formats a bit harder.
> Really? I haven't seen any evidence that 128-bit IEEE support is planned for x86 (or ARM anything else
> except IBM mainframes). If it was then x87 extended precision format truly could be made redundant.
> The 80-bit IEEE extended precision format was actually explicitly designed to be upgraded from
> 80 to 128 bits (without any software changes required)- it has the same exponent width as 128-bit
> IEEE and, indeed, in current designs is actually spilled as 128 bits in memory.
My understanding is that the 128-bit IEEE doesn't have the significand bit wich makes compatibility between both formats a bit harder.