Patent attributes
An execution unit is described which is particularly configured to generate an exponential of an operand floating point format. The operand is multiplied by a fixed multiplicand, logged to the base 2 (e) to generate a multiplication result. An integer part and a fractional part are extracted from the multiplication result. An exponent register stores the integer part to form the exponent of the exponential result. A lookup table has a plurality of entries each providing a value of 2f for a fractional part f used to access a lookup table. The fractional part is derived from a mantissa of the operand. That is, first and second bit sequences are extracted from the mantissa. One of the bit sequences is used to generate an estimated fractional component, and the other is used to access a value from the lookup table.