On left-to-right arithmetic
M.D. Ercegovac · 2017
Doing arithmetic most significant digits first (left-to-right, or MSDF) provides opportunities to circumvent or reduce data dependencies in recursive computations. It also enables digit-level massive parallelism, and allows variable precision computations with unbiased truncation. Moreover, there are benefits at the design level: precision-independent cycle time, lower energy since digits are used only when needed, and minimal interconnection. We present a view of left-to-right arithmetic features and highlight its use in solving linear systems of equations and inner-product designs.