Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!CRD.GE.COM
From: oconnordm@CRD.GE.COM (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 68040
Keywords: need data
Message-ID: <5140@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 7 Feb 90 15:18:44 GMT
References: <851@trane.UUCP> <7793@quick.COM> <5120@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <1224@m3.mfci.UUCP>
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Reply-To: oconnordm@CRD.GE.COM (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center
Lines: 34
In-reply-to: colwell@mfci.UUCP (Robert Colwell)

] In <> oconnordm@CRD.GE.COM (Dennis M. O'Connor) writes:
] Sqrt is not much more complex than division, actually. Look at
] the manual procedures you were taught for each : very similar.
] I think I've seen array circuit designs that did mul, div and sqrt. 
] I think I remember that once you've built an array divider,
] it's not hard to make it do square-root as well.
] 
] Unfortuneately, I can't find the paper I'm thinking of
] in the office. Sorry.

I found the paper :

  "A Generalized Pipeline Array"
  A.K. Kammal, Harpreet Singh, and P.G. Agrawal
  IEEE Transactions on Computers, May 1974, pp 533-536

Quoting the abstract:

  "Abstract - A generalized pipeline cellular array has been proposed
   which can perform all the basic operations such as multiplication,
   division, squarinng, and square rooting. The different modes of opera-
   tion are controlled by a single control line. An expression for time
   delay has ben obtained. Further, it has be shown that these
   arithmetic operations can be overlapped in the pipe in any desired
   sequence, and thus significant speed improvement can be achieved.
   The array is fully iterative and hence is suitable for large-scale
   integration."

The authors were ( and might still be ? ) with the Department of Electronics
and Communication Engineering, University of Roorkee, India.
--
  Dennis O'Connor      OCONNORDM@CRD.GE.COM      UUNET!CRD.GE.COM!OCONNOR
  Science and Religion have this in common : you must take care to
  distinguish both from the people who claim to represent each of them.