What is Floating point unit?
A '''floating point unit (FPU)''' is a part of a [[computer]] system specially designed to carry out operations on [[floating point]] numbers. Typical operations are [[addition]], [[subtraction]], [[multiplication]], [[Division (mathematics)|division]], and [[square root]]. Some systems can also perform more advanced functions as [[Exponential function|exponential]] or [[trigonometric function]]s calculations, however in most modern processors these functions are done with [[software]] library routines, not by hardware. In most modern general purpose [[Central processing unit|CPU]]s, one or more FPUs are integrated inside the CPU; however many [[Embedded system|embedded]] [[microcontroller]]s, especially older [[design]]s, do not have [[Computer hardware|hardware]] support for floating point operations. In the past, some systems as the [[Intel 8086]] have implemented floating point via a [[coprocessor]] that is controlled by the [[Central processing unit|CPU]] rather than as an integrated unit. Most modern computers have integrated FPU hardware; but not all. In the absence of an FPU, many FPU functions can be emulated, which saves the added hardware cost of an FPU but is significantly slower. ==Related pages== * [[Arithmetic logic unit]] (ALU) * [[Execution unit]] [[Category:Computer science]]