Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention may provide the capability to evaluate logarithm and power (exponentiation) functions using either hardware specific instructions, or a hardware specific implementation with reduced memory requirements. An input comprising a floating point representation of a real number may be received and a mantissa and an exponent may be extracted. A function of a logarithm of a mantissa of the real number may be approximated by utilizing a polynomial based on the mantissa. The approximated function of the logarithm may be combined with the exponent for calculating a value comprising a logarithm of the real number. Likewise, an input comprising a floating point representation of a real number and a representation of a second number may be received and an approximation of the real number to the power of the second number may be generated.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention may provide the capability to evaluate logarithm and power (exponentiation) functions using either hardware specific instructions, or a hardware specific implementation with reduced memory requirements. An input comprising a floating point representation of a real number may be received and a mantissa and an exponent may be extracted. A function of a logarithm of a mantissa of the real number may be approximated by utilizing a polynomial based on the mantissa. The approximated function of the logarithm may be combined with the exponent for calculating a value comprising a logarithm of the real number. Likewise, an input comprising a floating point representation of a real number and a representation of a second number may be received and an approximation of the real number to the power of the second number may be generated.