A family of variable-precision interval arithmetic processors

Traditional computer systems often suffer from roundoff error and catastrop hic cancellation in floating point computations. These systems produce appa rently high precision results with little or no indication of the accuracy. This paper presents hardware designs, arithmetic algorithms, and software support for a family of variable-precision, interval arithmetic processors. These processors give the programmer the ability to detect and, if desired , to correct implicit errors in finite precision numerical computations. Th ey also provide the ability to solve problems that cannot be solved efficie ntly using traditional floating point computations. Execution time estimate s indicate that these processors are two to three orders of magnitude faste r than software packages that provide similar functionality.