Re: [boost] [Math] float16 on ARM

-----Original Message----- From: Boost On Behalf Of Matt Hurd via Boost Sent: 15 October 2019 11:31 To: boost@lists.boost.org Cc: Matt Hurd Subject: Re: [boost] [Math] float16 on ARM

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Is this the only 16-bit floating-point format in use?

IEEE 16bit (fp16) and bfloat16 are both around, but bfloat16 seems to be

the new leader in modern implementations thanks to ML use. I haven't experienced both used together but I wouldn't rule it out given bfloat16 may be accelerator specific. Google and intel have support for bfloat16 in some hardware. bfloat16 makes it easy to move to fp32 as they have the same exponent size.

Refs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bfloat16_floating-point_format https://nickhigham.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/half-precision-arithmetic-fp16- versus-bfloat16/

Thanks for these useful references. Are bloat16 and IEEE float16 I:\boost\libs\math\include\boost\math\cstdfloat\cstdfloat_types.hpp the two layouts that we need to consider? Paul