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X87 Floating-Point Unit

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Modern X86 Assembly Language Programming
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Abstract

The x86 platform includes a discrete execution unit that is capable of performing floating-point arithmetic. This unit, known as the x87 floating-point unit (FPU), employs dedicated hardware to implement fundamental floating-point operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is also equipped to carry out more sophisticated computations using built-in square root, trigonometric, and logarithmic instructions. The x87 FPU supports a variety of numerical data types, including single and double precision floating-point, signed integers, and packed BCD.

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© 2014 Daniel Kusswurm

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Kusswurm, D. (2014). X87 Floating-Point Unit. In: Modern X86 Assembly Language Programming. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0064-3_3

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