Floating point vs fixed point microcontroller

1. What is the difference between fixed-point and floating-point?
2. Why is fixed-point better than floating-point?
3. What is fixed-point in microcontroller?
4. What is fixed and floating-point representation?

What is the difference between fixed-point and floating-point?

In fixed point notation, there are a fixed number of digits after the decimal point, whereas floating point number allows for a varying number of digits after the decimal point. This representation has fixed number of bits for integer part and for fractional part.

Why is fixed-point better 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.

What is fixed-point in microcontroller?

Fixed-point numbers often are set up to use the most significant bit to represent a positive or negative sign. This means that a 4-bit unsigned integer has a range of 0 to 15 (because 2⁴ = 16), while a 4-bit signed integer has a range of -8 to 7 (-8,-7,-6,-5,-4,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7).

What is fixed and floating-point representation?

Sign bit -The fixed-point numbers in binary uses a sign bit. A positive number has a sign bit 0, while a negative number has a sign bit 1. In floating-point representation, sign of a number always depends on mantissa, not on exponent. Hence sign bit in the format is always for mantissa and not for the exponent.