What Does Floating-Point Unit (FPU) Mean?
A floating point unit is an integrated circuit which handles all mathematical operations that have anything to do with floating point numbers or fractions. It is a dedicated logic unit specifically designed to work on floating point numbers and nothing else, hence the name. It can be defined as a specialized coprocessor that can manipulate numbers quicker than the basic microprocessor circuitry itself.
The FPU performs simple mathematical tasks which include addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and square root. Older FPUs process transcendental functions like exponential and trigonometric calculations but these can be expensive and complicated to implement, so in modern FPUs, these are done via software library routines.
Not all computer systems have hardware FPU. Those that do not have FPU can emulate its functions in multiple ways:
- In an operating system as inherent functions.
- It can be emulated in the CPU as a microcode or microprogram.
- Or in user code; typically this is what is called as software emulation.
