FPU Programmer’s Model

12.4Modes of operation

The FPU provides three modes of operation to accommodate a variety of applications:

Full-compliance mode

Flush-to-zero mode

Default NaN mode

12.4.1Full-compliance mode

In full-compliance mode, the FPU processes all operations according to the IEEE 754 standard in hardware.

12.4.2Flush-to-zero mode

Setting the FZ bit, FPSCR[24], enables flush-to-zero mode. In this mode, the FPU treats all subnormal input operands of arithmetic CDP operations as zeros in the operation. Exceptions that result from a zero operand are signaled appropriately. VABS, VNEG, and VMOV are not considered arithmetic CDP operations and are not affected by flush-to-zero mode. A result that is tiny, as described in the IEEE 754 standard, for the destination precision is smaller in magnitude than the minimum normal value before rounding and is replaced with a zero. The IDC flag, FPSCR[7], indicates when an input flush occurs. The UFC flag, FPSCR[3], indicates when a result flush occurs.

12.4.3Default NaN mode

Setting the DN bit, FPSCR[25], enables default NaN mode. In this mode, the result of any operation that involves an input NaN, or that generated a NaN result, returns the default NaN. Propagation of the fraction bits is maintained only by VABS, VNEG, and VMOV operations. All other CDP operations ignore any information in the fraction bits of an input NaN.

ARM DDI 0363E

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ARM R4F, r1p3 manual Modes of operation, Full-compliance mode Flush-to-zero mode Default NaN mode