Fixed point vs floating point performance

1. Is fixed-point faster than floating-point?
2. Why fixed-point over floating-point?
3. Is fixed point arithmetic faster?
4. What is the advantage of floating-point representation compared to fixed-point representation?

Is fixed-point faster than floating-point?

Fixed-point computations can be faster and/or use less hardware than floating-point ones. If the range of the values to be represented is known in advance and is sufficiently limited, fixed point can make better use of the available bits.

Why fixed-point over floating-point?

With fixed-point notation, the gaps between adjacent numbers always equal a value of one, whereas in floating-point notation, gaps between adjacent numbers are not uniformly spaced – the gap between any two numbers is approximately ten million times smaller than the value of the numbers (ANSI/IEEE Std.

Is fixed point arithmetic faster?

Integers and fixed-point arithmetic in FPGA

In other words, 10 out of the 16 bits are used to represent the fractional part and 6 bits for the integer part. Fixed-point arithmetic is widely used in FPGA-based algorithms because it usually runs faster and uses fewer resources when compared to floating-point arithmetic.

What is the advantage of floating-point representation compared to fixed-point representation?

Floating-point numbers have two advantages over integers. First, they can represent values between integers. Second, because of the scaling factor, they can represent a much greater range of values.