Analysis of the tradeoffs for the implementation of a high-radix logarithm

Abstract

An analysis of the tradeoffs between area and speed for a sequential implementation of a high-radix recurrence for logarithm computation is presented in this paper The high-radix algorithm is outlined and a sequential architecture is proposed, with the use of selection by rounding of the digits and redundant representation. Estimates of the execution time and total area are obtained for n = 16, 32 and 64 bits of precision and for radix values from r = 8 to r = 1024. An analysis of the tradeoffs between area and speed is presented, showing that the most efficient implementations are obtained for radices r = 256 for 16, 32 bit and r = 128 for 64 bit computations.