Enhanced Vector Math Support on the Intel®AVX-512 Architecture

Abstract

The Intel®AVX-512 architecture adds new capabilities such as masked execution, floating-point exception suppression and static rounding modes, as well as a small set of new instructions for mathematical library support. These new features allow for better compliance with floating-point or language standards (e.g. no spurious floating-point exceptions, and faster or more accurate code for directed rounding modes), as well as simpler, smaller footprint implementations that eliminate branches and special case paths. Performance is also improved, in particular for vector mathematical functions (which benefit from easier processing in the main path, and fast access to small lookup tables). In this paper, we describe the relevant new features and their possible applications to floating-point computation. The code examples include a few compact implementation sequences for some common vector mathematical functions.