The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 09, 1998
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1996
Andrew A Bjorksten, Austin, TX (US);
Donald G Mikan, Jr, Austin, TX (US);
Martin S Schmookler, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A device for aligning the radix point of an unaligned binary result of a floating point operation to a normalized or denormalized position is provided. The device comprises an alignment circuit that produces a shift alignment vector indicating the position of the most significant bit of the unaligned result that is set, when a normalized result is required, and that produces a shift alignment vector indicating the position of a bit of the unaligned result having the weight of a minimum allowable exponent for a given format, when a denormalized result is required. A shift register responsive to the alignment circuit shifts the unaligned result by the number of bits indicated by the shift alignment vector. The bit of the unaligned result having the weight of the minimum allowable exponent for the given format is determined by subtracting the binary value of the minimum allowable exponent from the binary value of the most significant bit of the unaligned result, wherein the difference indicates the number of bits from the most significant bit that the bit having the weight of the minimum allowable exponent is positioned.