created: 05/29/2002; revised: 11/16/2002

# CHAPTER 31 — Floating Point Arithmetic on MIPS

MIPS chips use the IEEE 754 floating point standard, both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions. However these notes cover only the 32 bit instructions. The 64 bit versions are similar.

#### Chapter Topics:

- Floating point registers.
- Loading and storing floating point registers.
- Single and (some) double precision arithmetic.
- Data movement instructions.
- Reading and writing floating point.

### QUESTION 1:

The 64 bit (double precision) floating point numbers are better than 32 bit (single precision). But how are they better?

- Increased Precison?
- Greater Range of values convered?
- Both?