Patent ID: 7355603

Claim:
In a graphics processor, a device for filtering floating-point texture data, the device comprising: a prescaling circuit configured to convert each one of a group of floating-point input texture values to a product of a fixed-point mantissa and a scaling factor, wherein the scaling factor is the same for each one of the group of floating-point input texture values; a fixed-point filtering circuit configured to compute a fixed-point filter output value from a plurality of fixed-point filter input values, the fixed-point filtering circuit being coupled to receive, as the fixed-point filter input values, the fixed-point mantissas for the group of floating-point input texture values; and an accumulator circuit coupled to receive the scaling factor from the prescaling circuit and the filter output value from the fixed-point filtering circuit, the accumulator circuit being configured to scale the filter output value by a reciprocal of the scaling factor, thereby generating a floating-point filter result.