THE INTEL~8087 NUMERIC DATA PROCESSOR
John Palmer
Intel Corporation
This paper describes a new device, the Intel~
8087 Numeric Data Processor, with unprecedented
speed, accuracy and capability. Its modified stack
architecture and instruction set are explained and
i l l u s t r a t i v e examples are included. The 8087,
which conforms to the proposed IEEE FloAting-Point
Standard, is a coprocessor in the Intel~8086 fam-
i l y . I t supports seven data types: three REAL,
three INTEGERand one packed BCD format, and per-
forms a l l necessary numeric operations from addi-
tion to logarithmic and trigonometric functions.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The Intel~)8087 is a high performance gen-
eral purpose nume~c data processor. I t is a
part of the InteNJ8086 family and can be used
with either the 8086 or the 8088 to extend their
instruction sets by over 120 numeric data manip-
ulation operations. The 8087 is not a peripheral
but a coprocessor; i t monitors the instruction
stream and when an 8086/8088 ESCAPE instruction
is read, the 8087 takes over the bus and inter-
prets and executes the ESCAPE instruction as one
of i t s own instructions. This t i g h t l y coupled
coprocessing interface permits the 8087 to exe-
cute numeric instructions while the 8086 executes
any others. The concurrent instruction execution
increases the throughput of the system. Further-
more, the 8087 is the only chip that must be added
to an 8086 (8088) system to provide numeric capa-
b i l i t y that exceeds software in speed by more than
a factor of 100.
The 8087 is intended to be general purpose
and satisfy a very wide range of needs for math-
ematical computation. I t is fast enough for a
great many s c i e n t i f i c and s t a t i s t i c a l calculations;
i t is accurate enough for business and commercial
computation; and i t is precise enough for entirely
CH1494-4/80/0000-0174 $00.75 © 1980 IEEE
474
new applications, most notably interval arithmetic
[1]. The 8087 provides an unprecedented level of
capability, safety and r e l i a b i l i t y with high per-
formance and low cost and is a prime example of the
almost incredible p o s s i b i l i t i e s in combining soft-
ware and architectural expertise with VLSI proces-
sing capability.
2.0 8087 OVERVIEW
The 8087 consists of a stack of registers for
holding operands and results, a set of registers
constituting i t s environment and a set of instruc-
tions.
The stack is a set of 8 registers, each 80
bits wide. Associated with the stack is a three
b i t stack pointer, TOP, and with each stack element
a two b i t tag. (Both the tags and TOP physically
belong to the ENVIRONMENT but w i l l be shown with
the stack.) The stack elements are numbered rela-
tive to TOP (ST(i) means the i t h stack element from
the top of stack) as shown bel~.
TAGS STACK
¢- SIGN
-7,=1 o
5 EXPONENT 51GNIFleRND ST{~)
ST (a)
ST(K)
ST(o) STBCK
i ST(G)
II 5T(5)
ST(4)
The tag f i e l d is used to detect u n i n i t i a l i z e d
stack elements and to designate special values
(e.g. zero) for microcode optimization.
The value represented in a register has 64
bits of precision and a range of about 10±4900 (15
b i t exponent). A more complete description of the
register values w i l l be given in Section 3.
 The 8087 environment consists of seven words i t causes an exception t h a t generates an i n t e r r u p t .
as i l l u s t r a t e d below.
There are four types of 8087 i n s t r u c t i o n s : the
B Z TOP~ C AISIN -iP U O (~!DI ST/~TU5 CORE set, the EXTENDED set, the SPECIAL FUNCTION
CONTROL set and the ADMINISTRATIVE set. The core set i n -
WORD cludes load and store of the stack values and a-
TAG r i t h m e t i c operators: add, s u b t r a c t , m u l t i p l y , d i -
WOR.D vide and compare. The extended set is f o r loading
~NST~UC- and s t o r i n g three special formats (see Section 3).
T ion
The special f u n c t i o n set includes square root and
RDDIZESS transcendental f u n c t i o n support. The administra-
t i v e i n s t r u c t i o n s are used f o r context switching
DATA and processor c o n t r o l . Most of the i n s t r u c t i o n s
w i l l be described in more d e t a i l as the 8087 de-
sign goals are explained.
The STATUS word consists of the EXCEPTION
f l a g s (0-7) and the STATUS b i t s (8-15) where the 3.0 DESIGN GOALS
meanings are (* indicates a f i e l d reserved f o r
f u t u r e use): The 8087 is designed to achieve several major
goals. F i r s t , the 8087 conforms to an improved
EXCEPTION FLAGS and expanded version of I n t e l ' s standard f o r f l o a t -
i n g - p o i n t a r i t h m e t i c C2]. Second, the 8087 prov-
I : i n v a l i d operation ides s i g n i f i c a n t l y more c a p a b i l i t y than mainframe
D : denormalized operand and minicomputer f l o a t i n g - p o i n t processors and
Q : d i v i s i o n of nonzero by zero consequently has a p p l i c a t i o n s beyond s c i e n t i f i c
0 : overflow computation. T h i r d , the 8087 is convenient to use
U : underflow in assembly language and easy to generate code f o r
P : inexact ( p r e c i s i o n ) in high level language. And f i n a l l y the capabil-
N : indicates a pending i n t e r r u p t i t i e s of VLSI are used to provide a l l t h i s f u n c t i o n -
a l i t y with high performance and e f f i c i e n c y in a
STATUS BITS s i n g l e device.

Z,C,A,S : c o n d i t i o n code b i t s f o r various 3.1 F l o a t i n g - P o i n t Standard

i n s t r u c t i o n s (e.g. COMPARE)
TOP : stack p o i n t e r
B : indicates whether the 8087 is
BUSY (used f o r synchronization)
The CONTROL WORD consists of EXCEPTION MASKS
and CONTROL BITS. For each exception there is a
mask which i f reset allows an i n t e r r u p t to be gen-
erated ( i f M = O) but i f set the i n t e r r u p t is sup-
pressed and the 8087 executes a d e f a u l t exception
handling procedure (on chip) and continues (the
procedure w i l l be explained in Section I I I ) . The
M mask is the 8087 i n t e r r u p t enable/disable b i t .
The CONTROL BITS have the f o l l o w i n g meaning
The I n t e l f l o a t i n g - p o i n t standard, called the
REALMATH standard, was o r i g i n a l l y specified in
1977 C2] and implemented in several products (FPAL,
SBC-310, FORTRAN-80, BASIC-80). At about t h a t time
an IEEE committee was formed to propose a f l o a t i n g -
p o i n t standard f o r microprocessors. I n t e l was i n -
v i t e d to p a r t i c i p a t e and offered i t s standard f o r
consideration.
At the time t h i s paper was w r i t t e n i t had be-
come apparent t h a t the m a j o r i t y of the committee
had agreed on a revised and expanded version of
I n t e l ' s standard [ 3 ] . The standard s p e c i f i e s data
formats, rounding algorithms and exception han-
dling.

PC : precision control - r e s u l t s are rounded The standard s p e c i f i e s and the 8087 supports
to one of three p r e c i s i o n s : Temporary three f l o a t i n g - p o i n t data types: Real ( s i n g l e
Real (64 b i t s ) , Long Real (53 b i t s ) , p r e c i s i o n ) , Long Real (double p r e c i s i o n ) and Tem-
Real (24 b i t s ) . porary Real (extended p r e c i s i o n ) . A l l formats are
binary and each has a biased exponent. The values
RC : rounding control - r e s u l t s are rounded represented by the three formats are shown below.
in one of four d i r e c t i o n s : unbiased
round to nearest, round towards + ~ ,
,~m ~ o
round towards - ~ , round towards zero.
IC : i n f i n i t y control - there are two types
of i n f i n i t y a r i t h m e t i c provided: a f f i n e
and p r o j e c t i v e .

The TAG word contains tags describing the

'Tq 6~ 0
contents of the corresponding stack elements. The
i n s t r u c t i o n and data pointers are the addresses o f
an i n s t r u c t i o n (and i t s referenced data i f any) i f I~hL I

t75
 i. I : i n v a l i d operation
RERL.. LONGR£BL T g M R REAL t h i s exception is signaled by stack
TOTRL. ~4 bi-t-5 80 bit5 overflow or underflow, the use of a
L.E N ~TH 3 E bits NAN as an operand and several other
EXPoNENT '3 bits I I bi'i~ 15 bits cases as l i s t e d in ~3]
LENGTH
EXPO~E~,,I'r p.,1 _ [ ~.,o_ I ~'~- I 2. D: denormalized operand

VALU4 e.-O
<o..F') at least one operand is denormalized

[e,,o, JJ...I 3. Q : zero divisor

the dividend is f i n i t e and nonzero
INFINITY e.-/l"-I,-F':O e : l l , . . I , ~ : O e.tl...I,i.l,.F':O while the divisor is zero
NOT'-A- e:~l...i ,-C¢O e:ll-"l ,.4~0 e,Jl..-I,i.I,-~-O
NUrvaBEI~. 4. 0 : overflow
C.aN) the exponent of the result is too
The Temporary Real format (identical to the large for the destination's format
8087 register format) is intended to hold inter-
mediates and to support accurate Long Real cal- 5. U : underflow
culations. I t has an e x p l i c i t leading b i t ( i ) in the exponent of the r e s u l t is too
the significand thus allowing unnormalized arith- small f o r the d e s t i n a t i o n ' s format
metic. However, the algorithms are designed so
6. P : inexact result
that normalized operands w i l l always yield nor-
malized results. the delivered result is not equal to
the completely precise result but has
The algorithms specified by the standard re- been rounded
quire that the completely precise result of an
operation be rounded to the nearest representable Since the default response to overflow and
number, breaking ties by rounding to the nearest zero divisor is to set the result t o n , the 8087
even number. This default mode of rounding is supports two modes of i n f i n i t y arithmetic:
called "unbiased round to nearest". There are
,optional "directed rounding" modes that are spec- I. a f f i n e - there are two i n f i n i t e s , one
i f i e d to yield ( - ~ ) less than a l l other numbers and one
(+cx:~) greater
1. the nearest neighbor less than or equal
to the true result. 2. projective - there is only one i n f i n i t y
(the sign o n - - i s ignored) which closes
2. the nearest neighbor greater than or the number system analogous to the point
equal to the true result. a t ~ o n the Reimann sphere.

The 8087 provides these rounding modes as con-
trolled by a f i e l d (RC) in the CONTROLWORD.
The 8087, which does a l l c a l c u l a t i o n s in
Temporary Real format, has another f i e l d in the
CONTROL word f o r s p e c i f y i n g the precision to which
a r e s u l t is rounded (PC). Thus, the p r e c i s i o n of
r e s u l t s is independent of the p r e c i s i o n of operands
and, though held in Temporary Real format and ben-
e f i t t i n g from extended range, may be forced to
Real, Long Real or Temporary Real. This control
is provided f o r languages t h a t do not a l l o w ex-
tended p r e c i s i o n intermediates and to allow the
same code to be run under d i f f e r e n t precision set-
t i n g s as an aid to e r r o r estimation.
The standard also specifies that a l l excep-
tions must be detected and that an implementation
should permit exception handling. The 8087 sup-
ports this by detecting six types of exceptions
and by generating an interrupt i f the exception is
not masked. I f an interrupt is generated, the in-
terrupt procedure (exception handler) has avail-
able the exception flags, a pointer to the instruc-
tion causing the interrupt and a pointer to the
datum i f memory was addressed. The six exceptions,
each of which has an associated "sticky" flag (once
set i t remains set until reset by software), are
listed below.
These two modes require the representation of
two zeros (±0) which are "equal" in comparison and
a l l other operations except division where*I/+O=,loc~
+I#O:-~. The mode of i n f i n i t y arithmetic is de-
termined by a f i e l d (IC) in the CONTROLword.
There are instructions that support the stand-
ard by controlling rounding, precision and i n f i n -
i t y arithmetic and by permitting complete exception
handling. These instructions load and store either
the control word or the entire environment and
store the exception flags.
The features and instructions discussed above
support the Intel floating-point (REALMATH) stand-
ard but additional capability is also desired.
3.2 Capability Extension
The 8087, by supporting the required and op-
tional aspects of the standard and by supporting
several features not mentioned by the standard,
s i g n i f i c a n t l y extends the capabilities of the 8086
family beyond that expected from a typical floating-
point processor. These extensions include addi-
tional data types, provision of exact arithmetic,
support for interval arithmetic and special func-
tions.

176
 The 8087 addresses seven d i f f e r e n t data types
using a l l of the 8086 addressing modes. These data
types are:
1. Real (32 b i t s )
2. Long Real (64 b i t s )
3. Temporary Real (80 b i t s )
4. Integer Word (16 b i t s 2's complement)
5. Integer (32 b i t 2's complement)
6. Long Integer (64 b i t 2's complement)
7. Packed BCD Integer (80 b i t s , 18 d i g i t s and
sign)
A l l of the data types, when used as operands,
are f i r s t converted (without rounding e r r o r ) to
Temporary Real and the r e s u l t of the operation is
also returned as Temporary Real. Thus the 8087
a r i t h m e t i c u n i t only has to work with one kind of
data. When r e s u l t s are desired in one of the other
formats, they are a u t o m a t i c a l l y converted to t h a t
type before they are stored in memory.
The provision of exact a r i t h m e t i c is accom-
plished by i n c l u d i n g the inexact exception (P)
along with i t s mask. I f a rounding e r r o r is com-
mitted, the c o r r e c t l y rounded r e s u l t is delivered
and the P f l a g is set. I f the mask (PM) is zero
an i n t e r r u p t is generated, otherwise execution
simply continues. This permits f i n a n c i a l account-
ing functions to be performed w i t h o u t fear of
roundoff e r r o r . Exact a r i t h m e t i c is also useful
in doing c o e f f i c i e n t " p r e c o n d i t i o n i n g " [see 4].
The support of i n t e r v a l a r i t h m e t i c is consid-
ered one of the most important features of the 8087.
As stated by W. Kahan [ 5 ] :
"No other feature would enhance safe
numerical computation more than the
provision of INTERVAL as a data type
in FORTRAN as r e a d i l y accessible as
INTEGER or REAL."
This new INTERVAL data type, which the 8087
supports through the rounding modes (RC) and the
signed zeros and i n f i n i t i e s , can be represented
as an ordered pa~r: INTERVAL, I = [a,b~. If a~b
then I includes a l l numbers between a and b; but
i f a > b then I includes a l l numbers x where x ~ a
or x ~ b . An i l l u s t r a t i o n may help c l a r i f y the con-
cept. Consider the set of numbers as a c i r c l e with
the two cases described above pictured as
o 0
'177
Start at a and proceed clockwise u n t i l b is
reached; a l l numbers covered belong to I. The
signs on zero and i n f i n i t y permit us to have open
or closed intervals when zero or i n f i n i t y is an end
point with the sign denoting which case pertains.
I f an endpoint is neither zero nor i n f i n i t y then
the interval is always closed. A complete d e f i n i -
tion of interval arithmetic cannot be given here;
however, we can l i s t some of i t s uses. In addition
to i t s obvious a b i l i t y to bound rounding errors,
interval arithmetic can be used to estimate the
effect of noise in data, to compute confidence in-
tervals and to do worst-case analysis.
In a d d i t i o n to exact and i n t e r v a l a r i t h m e t i c ,
the 8087 provides several special i n s t r u c t i o n s f o r
e f f i c i e n t evaluation of many important mathematical
f u n c t i o n s with unprecendented accuracy. One of
these i n s t r u c t i o n s is square root. I t overwrites
the contents of the top of stack with i t s c o r r e c t l y
rounded (according to RC and PC) square root. Be-
sides being c o r r e c t l y rounded the square root op-
eration is as f a s t as the d i v i d e i n s t r u c t i o n .
Thus algorithms need not be contorted to remove
square roots.
There are two i n s t r u c t i o n s to aid in argument
reduction f o r transcendental f u n c t i o n e v a l u a t i o n :
DECOMPOSE and REMAINDER. The decompose i n s t r u c t i o n
overwrites the contents of the top of stack with
the i n t e g r a l value of i t s exponent in Temporary
Real format, decrements the stack p o i n t e r and loads
i n t o the new top of stack the value of the s i g n i f i -
cand of the o r i g i n a l stack top scaled between I and
2 (or -1 and -2 i f negative). The operation is i l -
l u s t r a t e d below.
A A
Top sl p lil
( I f the o r i g i n a l top of stack is zero then both
r e s u l t s are zero.)
The remainder i n s t r u c t i o n is f o r reducing ar-
guments of periodic f u n c t i o n s to a primary range.
I t c a l c u l a t e s the exact remainder (no roundoff er-
ror) of the top two stack elements:
REM = (TOP) modulo (next-of-TOP)
The remainder is returned to the stack top and the
next-of-TOP ( " d i v i s o r " ) is not changed. Since the
execution of a f l o a t i n g - p o i n t remainder could be
very lengthy, the remainder i n s t r u c t i o n is a c t u a l l y
a primitive: the r e s u l t is e i t h e r the remainder or
the p a r t i a l remainder a f t e r a f i x e d number of steps.
Thus to compute a remainder requires a software
loop that terminates when I(TOP)I is less than
I(TOP +I) I. Even by using remainder we w i l l not
have t r i g o n o m e t r i c functions with period 2'Irsince
'IT'cannot be e x a c t l y represented in the 8087. How-
ever, the functions w i l l be e x a c t l y p e r i o d i c with
period 2"Ir'* (whereqT'* is the machine approximation
to.lr') and thus w i l l obey the i d e n t i t i e s t h a t do not
explicitly involveqT'.
The other i n s t r u c t i o n s provided f o r special
functions are TANGENT, ARCTANGENT, EXPONENTIAL and
LOGARITHM.
The tangent assumes the top of stack, X, i s
between zero and'IT'/4 and returns two r e s u l t s as
shown: . knows t h a t i t is being i n s t r u c t e d to do something.
l i n k stage, i t is necessary to explain the 8086-
8087 i n t e r f a c e .
The 8086 (8088) has a set of ESCAPE i n s t r u c -
t i o n s t h a t , in memory addressing mode, cause the
8086 to c a l c u l a t e the address and read the contents
of t h a t address. The 8086 ignores the word i t
reads and then preceeds to execute subsequent i n -
s t r u c t i o n s . The 8087 is monitoring the same i n -
s t r u c t i o n stream and when i t detects an ESCAPE i t
I t latches the opcode and i f there was an address

ToP .
A
X
I t
I
TAN

T~P
/
/
A
Y
c a l c u l a t e d the 8087 captures both the address and
the datum read by the 8086. By decoding the i n -
s t r u c t i o n the 8087 knows how many more words i t
meeds from memory and i t increments the address and
fetches data u n t i l a l l required data is read. The
8087 then releases the bus and begins c a l c u l a t i n g
w h i l e the 8086 continues executing the i n s t r u c t i o n
The arctangent works in reverse by using two argu-
stream. Because of the overlapped coprocessing of
ments and r e t u r n i n g one: the 8086-8087 i t is necessary to preceed 8087 i n -
s t r u c t i o n s (ESCAPE) with a WAIT i n s t r u c t i o n in or-
der to synchronize the two processors. In place
A
:
•
Ily~z
ATAN
>O
.
A
" of the WAIT, when the software emulator is to be
invoked, an INTERRUPT i n s t r u c t i o n is inserted.
y IT°p " X There are some other d i f f e r e n c e s between the hard-
ware and software i n t e r f a c e s but they are the same
TOP = ~ II X--arc'fon(y~)j length and use the same addressing mechanism. This
The exponential i n s t r u c t i o n , which c a l c u l a t e s permits a compiler to output an external reference
instead of the WAIT-ESCAPE and l e t the LINKER f i l l
2 X -1, assumes t h a t 0 _~x~1/2 and overwrites the
in with e i t h e r WAIT-ESCAPE or INTERRUPT depending
argument on the top of the stack with the r e s u l t . on whether the user has an 8087 or desires to use
The logarithm f u n c t i o n , which computes Y * log2(X),
the emulator.
uses two arguments and returns a s i n g l e r e s u l t as
shown In a d d i t i o n to software emulation to aid s o f t -
ware development, the 8087 has an e i g h t level stack

I i i
Y x >o ~"
TOP ~ X [~:y~loq~Cx)l
The e r r o r bound f o r a l l these f u n c t i o n s is about 2
u n i t s in the l a s t place thus a l l o w i n g f o r Long Real
arguments to be computed to Long Real accuracy.
The p r o v i s i o n of the described special f u n c t i o n s
support the goal of increased c a p a b i l i t y .
3.3 Ease of Use
As stated above, ease of use, along with sup-
port of the standard and extended c a p a b i l i t y , is
a major 8087 goal. We have made the 8087 easy and
convenient f o r programmers and automatic code gen-
erators by providing software emulation, a deep
(8 l e v e l s ) i n t e r n a l stack of very wide precision
(64 bits) and large range (10:1:4900), optimized sym-
metric mixed mode arithmetic and on chip default
exception handling.
The i n t e r f a c e between the 8086 (8088) and 8087
allows f o r software emulation of the 8087 permit-
t i n g software f o r the 8087 to be developed, de-
bugged and executed on a system containing only an
8086 (8088). In order to run the developed soft-
ware on an 8087 i t is not necessary to recompile
but only r e l i n k . To understand how one can delay
the resolution of either 8087 or emulator u n t i l the
of r e g i s t e r s t h a t supports the Temporary Real (80
b i t ) format and makes the 8087 f a r easier to use
than other f l o a t i n g - p o i n t processors. A l l calcu-
l a t i o n s are done in t h i s extended format and as
long as intermediates are kept in the stack or i t s
e q u i v a l e n t memory format ( i f e i g h t is not enough)
then the t h r e a t of roundoff damage and r i s k of over-
flow or underflow is g r e a t l y reduced. Roundoff er-
ror is reduced because Temporary Real intermediates
are more precise than Long Real data or f i n a l re-
s u l t s by eleven guard b i t s . Most overflows and
underflows occur on intermediate c a l c u l a t i o n s and
the extended range of Temporary over Long Real
(1024900 vs. 10 ±308 ) ensures t h a t on intermediates
these exceptions need seldom, i f ever, occur.
The symmetric mixed mode i n s t r u c t i o n set also
c o n t r i b u t e s to ease of use. The CORE i n s t r u c t i o n s ,
which include LOAD, STORE & POP, STORE, ADD, SUB-
TRACT, SUBTRACT REVERSE, MULTIPLY, DIVIDE, DIVIDE
REVERSE, COMPARE, and COMPARE & POP, take one o-
perand from the top of stack and a second operand
from e i t h e r memory or a stack element. There are
thus two forms of CORE i n s t r u c t i o n s : memory ad-
dressed and stack addressed. The memory addressed
form supports four memory formats in a l l 8086 ad-
dressing modes:
Integer Word (16 b i t 2's complement)
Integer (32 b i t 2's complement)
Real (32 b i t )
Long Real (64 b i t )

~78
The LOAD Integer i n s t r u c t i o n converts an i n t e g e r
to Temporary Real format and pushes i t on the stack;
the ADD Long Real i n s t r u c t i o n converts a Long Real
operand to Temporary Real and adds i t to the top of
the stack; and t h e STORE Integer Word i n s t r u c t i o n
converts the top of stack to a 16 b i t integer and
stores i t in memory ( w i t h o u t a l t e r i n g the contents
of the stack).
The stack addressed form of the CORE i n s t r u c -
t i o n s obtains the second operand from one of the
stack elements instead of memory. The reference
is always r e l a t i v e to the top of stack; thus stack
element i , where i:O . . . . . 7, refers to the i t h ele-
ment of the stack under the top of stack. The
stack addressed form has two options f o r the des-
t i n a t i o n of the r e s u l t . The r e s u l t can e i t h e r over-
w r i t e the top of stack or replace the contents of
the i t h stack element depending on the s e t t i n g of
the "di-rection" (D) b i t in the i n s t r u c t i o n .
d e s t i n a t i o n is the i t h stack element then depending
on the s e t t i n g of another b i t (the "pop" (P) b i t )
the stack is popped or l e f t unaltered.
The EXTENDED instructi~on set consists of two
memory addressed type of i n s t r u c t i o n s , LOAD and
STORE & POP, t h a t support three a d d i t i o n a l memory
formats:
Long Integer (64 b i t 2's complement)
Temporary Real (80 b i t )
Packed BCD (80 b i t )
The Temporary Real format is supported f o r extending
the 8087 stack to memory when necessary; the Packed
BCD format, which is a signed 18 d i g i t i n t e g e r as
shown,
°I °°. Hod
is used to aid binary-decimal conversion and COBOL
type c a l c u l a t i o n s ; and the Long Integer format is
supported f o r a p p l i c a t i o n s r e q u i r i n g very wide pre-
c i s i o n exact computation. Again i t is important
to note t h a t conversion of these formats to Tem-
porary Real is done with no rounding e r r o r .
Another i n s t r u c t i o n , included to make the 8087
easy to use, is in n e i t h e r the CORE nor the EXTEN-
DED set but i t s value is obvious. That i n s t r u c t i o n
is EXCHANGEtop of stack with the i t h stack element.
This i n s t r u c t i o n has no memory form and ignores the
D and P b i t s .
A f u r t h e r user convenience in the 8087 is i t s
on-chip d e f a u l t exception handling. Though i t is
possible to handle exceptions with software, i t is
often an onerous task to w r i t e , debug and maintain
exception handlers. The d e f a u l t 8087 response to
an exception is invoked by masking in the CONTROL
WORD t h a t exception. The 8087's response to masked
exceptions balances safety With the u t i l i t y of con-
tinued c a l c u l a t i o n . Listed below are the d e f a u l t
responses to masked exceptions:
1. I n v a l i d Operation - i f e i t h e r operand is
NAN, the 8087 propagates the l e x i c o g r a -
p h i c a l l y l a r g e r ( i g n o r i n g the sign) otherwise i t
generates a special NAN c a l l e d INDEFINITE as the
result.
2. Denormalized Operand - the operand is con-
verted to an e q u i v a l e n t unnormalized rep-
resentation preserving the same number of
leading zeros.
3. Zero D i v i s o r - since the dividend is non-
zero the r e s u l t is ± ~ with the sign set
in the usual way (XOR of the signs of the
operands).
4. Overflow - the r e s u l t i s ~ w i t h the sign
of the overflowed r e s u l t .
5. Underflow - the r e s u l t is denormalized to
f i t the d e s t i n a t i o n ' s format ("gradual
I f the underflow" E4J).
6. Inexact Result - the c o r r e c t l y rounded
r e s u l t is returned.
A l l of the features discussed above: software em-
u l a t i o n , deep Temporary Real stack, symmetric and
powerful i n s t r u c t i o n set and d e f a u l t exception
handling, make the 8087 easy and convenient to use;
but to be useful i t must also be e f f i c i e n t .
3.4 Effic.iency
E f f i c i e n c y was a major goal in the design of
the 8087. An extensive treatment of the i n t e r n a l
hardware and algorithms w i l l be given elsewhere,
but a b r i e f d e s c r i p t i o n w i l l i l l u s t r a t e our concern
f o r performance. The 8087's main ALU is more than
64 b i t s wide. This is to handle e f f i c i e n t l y 64
b i t operands with guard, round and s t i c k y b i t s [ 6 ]
and at l e a s t one overflow b i t . I t s s h i f t e r can
s h i f t r i g h t or l e f t from 0 to 63 places in one
clock cycle. This is useful f o r f o r m a t t i n g , nor-
malizing and denormalizing and f o r the transcen-
dental f u n c t i o n s . For normalizing there is hard-
ware f o r detecting the p o s i t i o n of the most s i g -
n i f i c a n t one. F i n a l l y , there is special harc~ware
to permit m u l t i p l y , d i v i d e , remainder and square
root to be calculated r a p i d l y . Approximate speeds
of the basic operations f o r stack operands are
summarized below:
5MHz
Microseconds
COMPARE 5
ADD (MAGNITUDE) 10
SUBTRACT (MAGNITUDE) 16
MULTIPLY 16, 24*
DIVIDE 38
SQUARE ROOT 38
* shorter time i f e i t h e r operand was o r i g i n a l l y
Real (32 b i t )
The above timings apply f o r Real, Long Real or
Temporary Real operands and r e s u l t s . The p r e v i -
ously described overlapped i n s t r u c t i o n execution
by the 8086 and 8087 also increases throughput.
However, more important t h a t absolute execution
speeds is the stack with i t s i n t e r n a l addressing
'179
t h a t minimizes memory referencing. There is an i n - 5. Add TOP (XT) to Sx and POP
s t r u c t i o n f o r scaling t h a t is much f a s t e r than mul-
tiply. For rapid context s w i t c h i n g , the 8087 has 6. LOAD Yi
SAVE and RESTORE i n s t r u c t i o n s . The i n s t r u c t i o n set
and the hardware to execute i t r a p i d l y give the 7. Add TOP (Yj) to My
8087 very high performance w i t h o u t s a c r i f i c i n g
quality. 8. M u l t i p l y TOP (Yi) to Xi

4.0 CONCLUSION 9. Square TOP

To i l l u s t r a t e the c a p a b i l i t i e s of the 8087 an I0. Add TOP ( Y ~ to Sy and POP

extensive set of programs would be very u s e f u l . We
w i l l here give two examples t h a t should r e i n f o r c e 11. Add TOP ( X i Y i ) to Cxy and POP
many of the points made e a r l i e r . The f i r s t example
is to c a l c u l a t e the length of a vector. The task 12. Loop to Step I
is conceptually simple but a r e l i a b l e , robust pro-
gram f o r the t y p i c a l f l o a t i n g - p o i n t system is hard The inner loop of t h i s program has only eleven
to produce. With the 8087 i t is easy, almost auto- 8087 i n s t r u c t i o n s and has the same properties of
matic, to produce such a program. r e l i a b i l i t y and robustness as the f i r s t example.
I t is also e f f i c i e n t since the minimum computation
Temporary Real : SUM and memory addressing is done.
Long Real : X (I), L
SUM : = 0 The I n t e l 8087 Numeric Data Processor, along
For I = 1 to N Do with i t s design goals of meeting I n t e l ' s REALMATH
SUM : = SUM + X ( I ) * * 2 standard, and providing increased c a p a b i l i t y , ease
of use and performance, has been described. We
L : = SQRT (SUM) have attempted to balance safety and u t i l i t y and
have provided an unprecendented level of c a p a b i l -
This program is free from intermediate overflow or i t y , accuracy and r e l i a b i l i t y in a math processor.
underflow problems and unless N is very large i t s
only s i g n i f i c a n t rounding e r r o r is in the l a s t i n - 5.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
, s t r u c t i o n - where i t is unavoidable but easy to
analyze. There are a great number of people who deserve
r e c o g n i t i o n f o r t h e i r c o n t r i b u t i o n to the 8087.
The second example demonstrates how several The i n i t i a l a r c h i t e c t u r a l design was the j o i n t work
accumulations can be calculated e f f i c i e n t l y in the of the author and Bruce Ravenel, r e l y i n q h e a v i l y
8087. I f we have two sets of data, Xi and Yi, t h a t on the advice of Professor W. Kahan. Robert
we want to analyze, we very l i k e l y w i l l want means, Koehler made s i g n i f i c a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n s to the sys-
standard deviations and c o r r e l a t i o n c o e f f i c i e n t s . tems aspects of the 8087 and Janis Baron was re-
We thus want to c a l c u l a t e : sponsible f o r designing the assembly language and
implementing the emulator. A great deal of c r e d i t
Mx =~Ex i My = ~ y j Sx = ~ x l 2 Sy =:Eyi 2 must go to Rafi Nave and his team in I n t e l Israel
f o r implementing the 8087 and to Dai-Sun Tsien f o r
Cxy = ~ x i Y i c a r e f u l l y reviewing and checking the implementa-
tion. Perhaps most s i g n i f i c a n t of a l l , we acknow-
In an o r d i n a r y stack machine, the f i v e values l i s - ledge the management of I n t e l f o r being w i l l i n g to
ted above would probably be calculated in f i v e sep- commit s i g n i f i c a n t resources to both implementation
arate passes through the data r e q u i r i n g t h a t each and promotion of a standard f o r r e l i a b l e numeric
datum be read three times. data processing.

On the 8087 the f i v e values can be c a l c u l a t e d BIBLIOGRAPHY

in one pass through the data, r e q u i r i n g t h a t each
datum be read only once. The a r c h i t e c t u r a l feature I. Moore, R.E. (1979), "Methods and A p p l i c a t i o n s
t h a t permits t h i s increase in e f f i c i e n c y is the of I n t e r v a l A n a l y s i s , " SIAM Studies in Applied
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2. Palmer, J. (1977), "The I n t e l Standard f o r
STEP ACTION F l o a t i n g - P o i n t A r i t h m e t i c , " Proc. COMPSAC,
107-112.
O. Clear f i v e stack elements (push zero f i v e
times): Mx, My, Sx, Sy, Cxy 3. Coonan, J . , W. Kahan, J. Palmer, T. Pittman
and D. Stevenson (1979), "A Proposed Standard
1. LOAD X i f o r F l o a t i n g - P o i n t A r i t h m e t i c , " SIGNUM News-
l e t t e r , October, 1979.
2. Add TOP (Xi) to Mx
4. Kahan, W., J. Palmer (1979), "On a Proposed
3. Duplicate TOP of stack F l o a t i n g - P o i n t Standard," SIGNUM Newsletter,
October, 1979.
4. Square TOP

'180
5. Kahan, W. (1972), "A Survey of Error Analysis,"
Information Processing 71, North Holland Pub-
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6. Yohe, J. (1973), "Roundings in Floating-Point

Arithmetic," IEEE Trans. Computers, Vol. C-22,
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