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Cortex-A8 Technical Reference Manual - ARM Information Center

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13.5 Modes of operation<br />

13.5.1 Full-compliance mode<br />

13.5.2 Flush-to-zero mode<br />

13.5.3 Default NaN mode<br />

13.5.4 RunFast mode<br />

NEON and VFP Programmers Model<br />

To accommodate a variety of applications, the VFP coprocessor provides four modes of<br />

operation:<br />

• Full-compliance mode<br />

• Flush-to-zero mode<br />

• Default NaN mode<br />

• RunFast mode.<br />

When the VFP coprocessor is in full-compliance mode, all operations are processed according<br />

to the IEEE 754 standard in hardware.<br />

Setting the FZ bit, FPSCR[24], enables flush-to-zero mode and increases performance on very<br />

small inputs and results. In flush-to-zero mode, the VFP coprocessor treats all subnormal input<br />

operands of arithmetic CDP operations as zeros in the operation. Exceptions that result from a<br />

zero operand are signaled appropriately. FABS, FNEG, and FCPY are not considered arithmetic<br />

CDP operations and are not affected by flush-to-zero mode. A result that is tiny, as described in<br />

the IEEE 754 standard, for the destination precision is smaller in magnitude than the minimum<br />

normal value before rounding and is replaced with a zero. The IDC flag, FPSCR[7], indicates<br />

when an input flush occurs. The UFC flag, FPSCR[3], indicates when a result flush occurs.<br />

Setting the DN bit, FPSCR[25], enables default NaN mode. In default NaN mode, the result of<br />

any operation that involves an input NaN or generated a NaN result returns the default NaN.<br />

Propagation of the fraction bits is maintained only by FABS, FNEG, and FCPY operations, all<br />

other CDP operations ignore any information in the fraction bits of an input NaN.<br />

RunFast mode is the combination of the following conditions:<br />

• the VFP coprocessor is in flush-to-zero mode<br />

• the VFP coprocessor is in default NaN mode<br />

• all exception enable bits are cleared to 0.<br />

In RunFast mode the VFP coprocessor:<br />

• processes subnormal input operands as zeros<br />

• processes results that are tiny before rounding, that is, between the positive and negative<br />

minimum normal values for the destination precision, as zeros<br />

• processes input NaNs as default NaNs<br />

• returns the default result specified by the IEEE 754 standard for overflow, division by<br />

zero, invalid operation, or inexact operation conditions fully in hardware and without<br />

additional latency.<br />

<strong>ARM</strong> DDI 0344K Copyright © 2006-2010 <strong>ARM</strong> Limited. All rights reserved. 13-16<br />

ID060510 Non-Confidential

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