Floating-Point Accuracy
Depending on the chosen accuracy for floating-point operation (low | fast | safe
) the precision in terms of Unit of
Last Precision (ULP) (last correct bit) is different. The precision dictates the
number of operations to be executed by the processor. The floating-point addition
relies on the floating-point adder that exists in the hardware right after the
bfloat16
vector multiplier.
Based on the precision of the floating-point operation, the table below specifies the ULP and the corresponding code that is executed.
Precision | ULP | Executed Assembly Code |
---|---|---|
low | 10 |
|
fast | 5 |
|
safe | 0 |
|
The higher the precision, the greater the number of operations to be executed to achieve it, which can reduce the compute performance.