Itanium's New Basic Operation of Fused Multiply-Add: Theoretical Explanation and Theoretical Challenge

Authors

Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

12-2000

Comments

UTEP-CS-00-42.

Published in ACM SIGACT News, 2001, Vol. 32, No. 1 (118), pp. 115-117.

Abstract

A new Intel's 64-bit chip Itanium has a new instruction set which includes a fused multiply-add instruction x1+x2*x3. In this short article, we explain the empirical reasons behind the choice of this instruction, give possible theoretical explanation for this choice, and mention a related theoretical challenge.