Patent ID: 6480873
Filing Date: 2002-11-12
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A power operation device for performing a power operation on an input base bit string X and an input exponent bit string Y so as to compute XY, said device comprising:a logarithm operation unit for performing a base-2 logarithm operation on the input base bit string X and for furnishing a logarithmic base bit string corresponding to the base-2 logarithm of the input base bit string X; a multiplier for multiplying the logarithmic base bit string by either a bit string equivalent to the input exponent bit string Y or the input exponent bit string Y, and for furnishing a multiplication result as a first multiplication bit string; a bit operation unit for performing a bit shift operation on the logarithmic base bit string from said logarithm operation unit according to the input exponent bit string Y, and for furnishing the shifted logarithmic base bit string as a second multiplication bit string; an exponent checking unit for checking whether or not the input exponent bit string Y is the ith power of a base 2 where i is an integer, and for, if so, furnishing a selection signal to direct selection of the second multiplication bit string; a multiplication bit string selection unit for receiving both the first multiplication bit string from said multiplier and the second multiplication bit string from said bit operation unit, for selecting and furnishing the second multiplication bit string when it receives the selection signal from said exponent checking unit, and for selecting and furnishing the first multiplication bit string otherwise; and an exponential operation unit for performing a base-2 exponential operation on the selected first or second multiplication bit string from said multiplication bit string selection unit, i.e., computing 2Z where Z is the selected first or second multiplication bit string, and for furnishing the computed base-2 exponential value as the power operation result XY.