Prenormalization for a floating-point adder

摘要

In a floating-point subtraction of two numbers where a normalized result is needed, a prenormalization circuit predicts the number of leading zeroes which will appear in the resultant mantissa, due to the close value of the two source operands. The prenormalization circuit then causes appropriate left shifts of the two operand mantissas prior to the subtraction (two's complement addition) is performed, wherein the resultant mantissa will already be normalized.