MS  for Pavle Belanovic

Title:
Library of Parameterized Hardware Modules for Floating-Point Arithmetic
with An Example Application

Abstract:
Due to inherent limitations of the fixed-point representation, it is
sometimes desirable to perform arithmetic operations in the
floating-point format. Although an established standard for
floating-point arithmetic exists, optimal hardware implementations of
algorithms require use of floating-point formats different from the
ones specified in the standard. A library of fully parameterized
hardware modules for floating-point format control, arithmetic
operators and conversion to and from any fixed-point format are
presented. Synthesis results for arithmetic operator modules in several
floating-point formats, including the IEEE single precision format, are
also shown. The library supports creation of custom format
floating-point pipelines, as well as hybrid fixed and floating-point
implementations. A hybrid implementation of the K-means clustering
algorithm for multispectral and hyperspectral image processing is
presented, illustrating the use of the library. Synthesis and
processing results for both implementations are shown and compared.