An integrated circuit including a plurality of logarithmic addition-accumulator circuits, connected in series, to, in operation, perform logarithmic addition and accumulate operations, wherein each logarithmic addition-accumulator circuit includes: (i) a logarithmic addition circuit to add a first input data and a filter weight data, each having the logarithmic data format, and to generate and output first sum data having a logarithmic data format, and (ii) an accumulator, coupled to the logarithmic addition circuit of the associated logarithmic addition-accumulator circuit, to add a second input data and the first sum data output by the associated logarithmic addition circuit to generate first accumulation data. The integrated circuit may further include first data format conversion circuitry, coupled to the output of each logarithmic addition circuit, to convert the data format of the first sum data to a floating point data format wherein the accumulator may be a floating point type.

A processing unit and a method for multiplying at least two multiplicands. The multiplicands are present in an exponential notation, that is, each multiplicand is assigned an exponent and a base. The processing unit is configured to carry out a multiplication of the multiplicands and includes at least one bitshift unit, the bitshift unit shifting a binary number a specified number of places, in particular, to the left; an arithmetic unit, which carries out an addition of two input variables and a subtraction of two input variables; and a storage device. A computer program, which is configured to execute the method, and a machine-readable storage element, in which the computer program is stored, are also described.

Numeric operations on a series of values, each encoded as a logarithm, may be performed. A first offset is determined based on values of an initial subset of the series. Numerical operations on individual elements of the series may then be performed by performing an exponentiation of a difference between the individual elements and the first offset. A particular element in the series may be identified as being unable to be included without causing an overflow or underflow of an exponentiation or numerical operation. In this event, a second offset may be determined. The numerical operations may then proceed by adjusting a current accumulated result using the second offset and continuing to perform numerical operations on individual elements of the series by performing an exponentiation of a difference between the individual elements and the second offset. Additional offsets may be optionally determined until the numerical operation is complete.

Described herein are techniques of using a hybrid analog-digital processor to optimize parameters of a system for an objective under one or more constraints. The techniques involve using the hybrid analog-digital processor to optimizing parameter values of the system. The optimizing comprises: determining, using an analog processor of the hybrid analog-digital processor, a parameter gradient for parameter values of the system based on the objective function and the at least one constraint; and updating the parameter values of the system using the parameter gradient.

An integrated circuit includes a hardware inexact floating-point logarithmic number system (FPLNS) multiplier. The integrated circuit access registers containing a first floating-point binary value and its first logarithmic binary value and a second floating-point binary value and its second logarithmic binary value, each being in an FPLNS data format. The FPLNS multiplier configured to multiply the first and second floating-point binary values by adding the first logarithmic binary value to the second logarithmic binary value to form a first logarithmic sum, shifting a bias constant by a number of bits of the mantissa of the first floating-point binary value to form a first shifted bias value, subtracting a correction factor from the first shifted bias value to form a first corrected bias value, and subtracting the first corrected bias value from the first logarithmic sum to form a first result.

A processor or other device, such as a programmable and/or massively parallel processor or other device, includes processing elements designed to perform arithmetic operations (possibly but not necessarily including, for example, one or more of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division) on numerical values of low precision but high dynamic range (“LPHDR arithmetic”). Such a processor or other device may, for example, be implemented on a single chip. Whether or not implemented on a single chip, the number of LPHDR arithmetic elements in the processor or other device in certain embodiments of the present invention significantly exceeds (e.g., by at least 20 more than three times) the number of arithmetic elements, if any, in the processor or other device which are designed to perform high dynamic range arithmetic of traditional precision (such as 32 bit or 64 bit floating point arithmetic).

A processor or other device, such as a programmable and/or massively parallel processor or other device, includes processing elements designed to perform arithmetic operations (possibly but not necessarily including, for example, one or more of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division) on numerical values of low precision but high dynamic range (“LPHDR arithmetic”). Such a processor or other device may, for example, be implemented on a single chip. Whether or not implemented on a single chip, the number of LPHDR arithmetic elements in the processor or other device in certain embodiments of the present invention significantly exceeds (e.g., by at least 20 more than three times) the number of arithmetic elements, if any, in the processor or other device which are designed to perform high dynamic range arithmetic of traditional precision (such as 32 bit or 64 bit floating point arithmetic).

A processor or other device, such as a programmable and/or massively parallel processor or other device, includes processing elements designed to perform arithmetic operations (possibly but not necessarily including, for example, one or more of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division) on numerical values of low precision but high dynamic range (“LPHDR arithmetic”). Such a processor or other device may, for example, be implemented on a single chip. Whether or not implemented on a single chip, the number of LPHDR arithmetic elements in the processor or other device in certain embodiments of the present invention significantly exceeds (e.g., by at least 20 more than three times) the number of arithmetic elements, if any, in the processor or other device which are designed to perform high dynamic range arithmetic of traditional precision (such as 32 bit or 64 bit floating point arithmetic).

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request for an operation to be performed; determining that the operation is associated with a machine-learning algorithm, and in response, route the operation to a computing circuit; performing, at the computing circuit, the operation, including: determining a linear domain product of a first log-domain number and a second log-domain number associated with the operation based on a summation of the first log-domain number and the second log-domain number and output a third log-domain number approximating the linear domain product of the first log-domain number and the second log-domain number; converting the third log-domain number to a first linear-domain number; summing the first linear-domain number and a second linear-domain number associated with the operation, and output a third linear-domain number as the summed result.

Low precision computers can be efficient at finding possible answers to search problems. However, sometimes the task demands finding better answers than a single low precision search. A computer system augments low precision computing with a small amount of high precision computing, to improve search quality with little additional computing.