TL;DR
The article discusses the immediate bit pattern of the AVX CMP instructions for comparing IEEE754 floating-point numbers, specifically vcmpps and vcmppd. It highlights the complexity and confusion surrounding these instructions, inviting insights from Intel.
✦ Why It Matters
Seek clarification from Intel on AVX instruction patterns to improve your understanding and usage of floating-point comparisons.
Key Takeaways
How It Works
The vcmpps and vcmppd instructions use a five-bit encoding scheme to determine the results of comparisons across SIMD lanes. Each bit in the encoding corresponds to specific outcomes for comparisons, such as greater than or unordered, and the relationships between these bits are complex.
This design allows for efficient processing of multiple comparisons simultaneously, but it requires a deep understanding of the encoding to use effectively.
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