L-5 Floating Point Representation of Numbers
L-5 Floating Point Representation of Numbers
Representation of
Numbers
Nazmun Nessa Moon
Assistant Professor
Department of CSE
Daffodil International University
References
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Types of Computer
Arithmetic
There are two types of arithmetic operations which
are required in computers. These are:
(i) Integer arithmetic,
(ii) Real or floating point arithmetic.
Integer arithmetic, as the name implies, deals
with integer operands, that is, operands without
fractional parts.
Real arithmetic, on the other hand, uses numbers
with fractional parts and is used in most
computations.
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Fixed Point Arithmetic
One method of representing real numbers in a computer
would be by assuming a fixed position for the binary
point and storing numbers with an assumed decimal
point, as shown in the following figure.
This figure shows a memory location storing
+101101101.101101.
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Fixed Point
Arithmetic……... …
If such a convention is used, the maximum and
minimum (in magnitude) numbers that may be
stored are:
•111111111.1111112 = (29 - 1) + (1 - 2-6)
(Maximum)
= 511.98437510
•000000000.0000012 = 2-6 (Minimum)
= 0.01562510
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Floating Point
Arithmetic………... ……
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Floating Point
Arithmetic………... ……
The shifting of the mantissa to the left till its most
significant bit is non-zero is called normalization.
The normalization is done to preserve the maximum
number of useful (information carrying) bits.
The leading zeros in 0.000010101 serve only to locate
the binary point.
The information may thus be transferred to the
exponent part of the number and the number is stored
as 0.10101 x 2-4.
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Floating Point
Arithmetic………... ……
When numbers are stored using this notation, the range
of numbers (magnitude) that may be stored will be:
•Maximum = 0.11111111E0111111
= (1 – 2−8) x
263
•Minimum = 0.10000000E1111111
= 2−1 x
= 2−64
This range is much larger than the range 29 to 2-6
obtained with the fixed point representation.
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Key Words/Phrases
Integer arithmetic
Mantissa
Exponent
Normalization