Composite Iterative Algorithm and Architecture for q-th Root Calculation

An algorithm for the q-th root extraction, q being any integer, is presented in this paper. The algorithm is based on an optimized implementation of X^{1/q} by a sequence of parallel and/or overlapped operations: (1) reciprocal, (2) digit-recurrence logarithm, (3) left-to-right carry-free multiplication and (4) on-line exponential. A detailed error analysis and two architectures are proposed, for low precision q and for higher precision q. The execution time and hardware requirements are estimated for single precision floating-point computations for several radices, this helps to determine which radices result in the most efficient implementations. The architectures proposed improve the features of other architectures for q-th root extraction.