This example shows how to perform basic fixed-point arithmetic operations.
Save warning states before beginning.
warnstate = warning;
Whenever you add two unsigned fixed-point numbers, you may need a carry bit to correctly represent the result. For this reason, when adding two B-bit numbers (with the same scaling), the resulting value has an extra bit compared to the two operands used.
a = ufi(0.234375,4,6); c = a + a
c =
0.4688
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Unsigned
WordLength: 5
FractionLength: 6
a.bin
ans =
'1111'
c.bin
ans =
'11110'
With signed, two's-complement numbers, a similar scenario occurs because of the sign extension required to correctly represent the result.
a = sfi(0.078125,4,6); b = sfi(-0.125,4,6); c = a + b
c =
-0.0469
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 5
FractionLength: 6
a.bin
ans =
'0101'
b.bin
ans =
'1000'
c.bin
ans =
'11101'
If you add or subtract two numbers with different precision, the radix point first needs to be aligned to perform the operation. The result is that there is a difference of more than one bit between the result of the operation and the operands (depending on how far apart the radix points are).
a = sfi(pi,16,13); b = sfi(0.1,12,14); c = a + b
c =
3.2416
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 18
FractionLength: 14
Note that the following pattern is not recommended. Since scalar additions are performed at each iteration in the for-loop, a bit is added to temp during each iteration. As a result, instead of a ceil(log2(Nadds)) bit-growth, the bit-growth is equal to Nadds.
s = rng; rng('default'); b = sfi(4*rand(16,1)-2,32,30); rng(s); % restore RNG state Nadds = length(b) - 1; temp = b(1); for n = 1:Nadds temp = temp + b(n+1); % temp has 15 more bits than b end
If the sum command is used instead, the bit-growth is curbed as expected.
c = sum(b) % c has 4 more bits than b
c =
7.0059
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 36
FractionLength: 30
In general, a full precision product requires a word length equal to the sum of the word lengths of the operands. In the following example, note that the word length of the product c is equal to the word length of a plus the word length of b. The fraction length of c is also equal to the fraction length of a plus the fraction length of b.
a = sfi(pi,20); b = sfi(exp(1),16); c = a * b
c =
8.5397
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 36
FractionLength: 30
When you assign a fixed-point value into a pre-defined variable, quantization might be involved. In such cases, the right-hand-side of the expression is quantized by rounding to nearest and then saturating, if necessary, before assigning to the left-hand-side.
N = 10; a = sfi(2*rand(N,1)-1,16,15); b = sfi(2*rand(N,1)-1,16,15); c = sfi(zeros(N,1),16,14); for n = 1:N c(n) = a(n).*b(n); end
Note that when the product a(n).*b(n) is computed with full precision, an intermediate result with wordlength 32 and fraction length 30 is generated. That result is then quantized to a wordlength of 16 and a fraction length of 14, as explained above. The quantized value is then assigned to the element c(n).
Often, it is not desirable to round to nearest or to saturate when quantizing a result because of the extra logic/computation required. It also may be undesirable to have to assign to a left-hand-side value to perform the quantization. You can use QUANTIZE for such purposes. A common case is a feedback-loop. If no quantization is introduced, un-bounded bit-growth will occur as more input data is provided.
a = sfi(0.1,16,18); x = sfi(2*rand(128,1)-1,16,15); y = sfi(zeros(size(x)),16,14); for n = 1:length(x) z = y(n); y(n) = x(n) - quantize(a.*z, true, 16, 14, 'Floor', 'Wrap'); end
In this example, the product a.*z is computed with full precision and is subsequently quantized to a wordlength of 16 bits and a fraction length of 14. The quantization is done by rounding to floor (truncation) and allowing for wrapping if overflow occurs. Quantization still occurs at assignment, because the expression x(n) - quantize(a.*z, ...) produces an intermediate result of 18 bits and y is defined to have 16 bits. To eliminate the quantization at assignment, you can introduce an additional explicit quantization as shown below. The advantage of doing this is that no round-to-nearest/saturation logic is used. The left-hand-side result has the same 16-bit wordlength and fraction length of 14 as y(n), so no quantization is necessary.
a = sfi(0.1,16,18); x = sfi(2*rand(128,1)-1,16,15); y = sfi(zeros(size(x)),16,14); T = numerictype(true, 16, 14); for n = 1:length(x) z = y(n); y(n) = quantize(x(n), T, 'Floor', 'Wrap') - ... quantize(a.*z, T, 'Floor', 'Wrap'); end
Full-precision sums are not always desirable. For example, the 18-bit wordlength corresponding to the intermediate result x(n) - quantize(...) above may result in complicated and inefficient code, if C code is generated. Instead, it may be desirable to keep all results of addition/subtraction to 16 bits. You can use the accumpos and accumneg functions for this purpose.
a = sfi(0.1,16,18); x = sfi(2*rand(128,1)-1,16,15); y = sfi(zeros(size(x)),16,14); T = numerictype(true, 16, 14); for n = 1:length(x) z = y(n); y(n) = quantize(x(n), T); % defaults: 'Floor','Wrap' y(n) = accumneg(y(n), quantize(a.*z, T)); % defaults: 'Floor','Wrap' end
accumpos and accumneg are well-suited to model accumulators. The behavior corresponds to the += and -= operators in C. A common example is an FIR filter in which the coefficients and input data are represented with 16 bits. The multiplication is performed in full-precision, yielding 32 bits, and an accumulator with 8 guard-bits, i.e. 40-bits total is used to enable up to 256 accumulations without the possibility of overflow.
b = sfi(1/256*[1:128,128:-1:1],16); % Filter coefficients x = sfi(2*rand(300,1)-1,16,15); % Input data z = sfi(zeros(256,1),16,15); % Used to store the states y = sfi(zeros(size(x)),40,31); % Initialize Output data for n = 1:length(x) acc = sfi(0,40,31); % Reset accumulator z(1) = x(n); % Load input sample for k = 1:length(b) acc = accumpos(acc,b(k).*z(k)); % Multiply and accumulate end z(2:end) = z(1:end-1); % Update states y(n) = acc; % Assign output end
To simplify syntax and shorten simulation time, you can use matrix arithmetic. For the FIR filter example, you can replace the inner loop with an inner product.
z = sfi(zeros(256,1),16,15); % Used to store the states y = sfi(zeros(size(x)),40,31); for n = 1:length(x) z(1) = x(n); y(n) = b*z; z(2:end) = z(1:end-1); end
The inner product b*z is performed with full precision. Because this is a matrix operation, the bit growth is due to both the multiplication involved and the addition of the resulting products. Therefore, the bit growth depends on the length of the operands. Since b and z have length 256, that accounts for an 8-bit growth due to the additions. This is why the inner product results in 32 + 8 = 40 bits (with fraction length 31). Since this is the format y is initialized to, no quantization occurs in the assignment y(n) = b*z.
If you had to perform an inner product for more than 256 coefficients, the bit growth would be more than 8 bits beyond the 32 needed for the product. If you only had a 40-bit accumulator, you could model the behavior by either introducing a quantizer, as in y(n) = quantize(Q,b*z), or you could use the accumpos function as has been shown.
accumpos can be used to model a simple counter which naturally wraps after reaching its maximum value. For example, you can model a 3-bit counter as follows.
c = ufi(0,3,0); Ncounts = 20; % Number of times to count for n = 1:Ncounts c = accumpos(c,1); end
Since the 3-bit counter naturally wraps back to 0 after reaching 7, the final value of the counter is mod(20,8) = 4.
When doing multiplication between fi and double, the double is cast to a fi with the same word length and signedness of the fi, and best-precision fraction length. The result of the operation is a fi.
a = fi(pi); b = 0.5 * a
b =
1.5708
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 32
FractionLength: 28
When doing addition or subtraction between fi and double, the double is cast to a fi with the same numerictype as the fi. The result of the operation is a fi.
This behavior of fi + double changed in R2012b. You can turn off the incompatibility warning by entering the following warning command.
warning off fixed:incompatibility:fi:behaviorChangeHeterogeneousMathOperationRules a = fi(pi); b = a + 1
b =
4.1416
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 17
FractionLength: 13
Note that in C, the result of an operation between an integer data type and a double data type promotes to a double.
However, in MATLAB, the result of an operation between a built-in integer data type and a double data type is an integer. In this respect, the fi object behaves like the built-in integer data types in MATLAB. The result of an operation between a fi and a double is a fi.
When doing arithmetic between fi and one of the built-in integer data types [u]int[8,16,32], the word length and signedness of the integer are preserved. The result of the operation is a fi.
a = fi(pi); b = int8(2) * a
b =
6.2832
DataTypeMode: Fixed-point: binary point scaling
Signedness: Signed
WordLength: 24
FractionLength: 13
Restore warning states.
warning(warnstate);
%#ok<*NASGU,*NOPTS>