Re: sfloat24 Floating Point DataType - Request for Comments

[Fernando via Digitalmars-d]

I am Eng. (Electrical Engineer) Fernando Parillo of University of 
Cassino, Italy, author of several papers about sfloat24 math 
library. I conceived this library, in the early of 2007 and this 
library worked in stable manner in the middle of 2010, date of 
publication of the first paper concerning its usage on a FPGA 
device concerning the implementation of a control strategy 
applied to a Power Electronic converter, July 2010. As well known 
a FPGA is a programmable digital logic device by software. Thus, 
it can execute any logical function such as numeric processors, 
digital interface, controllers and decoders only in a single IC. 
The FPGA architecture contains programmable logic components 
called Configurable Logic Blocks (CLB), and a hierarchy of 
reconfigurable interconnects that allow the blocks to be wired 
together. The CLB can be configured to make complex combinational 
functions, or only simple logic gates like AND and XOR.
In most FPGA, the CLB also include memory elements, which can be 
simple flip-flops or more complete blocks of memory. FPGAs are 
programmed using a logic circuit diagram or a source code in 
Hardware Description Language (HDL). The main motivation to 
develop this library was to implement a floating-point numerical 
system on a low cost FPGA device, as an ALTERA Cyclone I. It is 
obvious that this library could be suitable also for low cost 
microcontrollers where the ALU has low performances. In view of 
the circumstances of the new programming language, development, 
as D language, could be useful to include a short floating-point 
number format in it, as native numbering system. A reduced 
floating-point library could be very useful for low cost 
processors programming. Nowadays low cost microcontrollers and/or 
microprocessors offer acceptable performances only if integer 
numbers are used. If you are interested to implement this format 
in the future D programming language, I could offer my support. 
For me this collaboration could be an excellent 
experience/opportunity to improve the sfloat24 math library and 
the same time to learn more about computer science skills. At 
moment I have implemented, the basic arithmetic operations, 
square root of a number, hyperbolic/trigonometric functions, etc. 
 To understand the utility of this floating-point format you 
could look for “sfloat24 converter tool ver. 1.1” available on 
the Apple® app. Store. For any questions do not hesitate to 
contact me by email o directly using SKYPE.

Best Regards
F. Parillo
University of Cassino Research Assistant, Apple® IOS developer
Website:  http://fparillo.wix.com/accademic , SKYPE account: 
f.parillo

Thanks a lot for your paid attention and have a nice day.