A fast radix 4 division algorithm

In this paper we present a fast radix 4 division algorithm for floating point numbers based on Svoboda´s division algorithm. The algorithm involves a simple recurrence with carry-free addition and employs pre-scaling of the operands, The quotient digits are determined by observing three most-significant radix 2 digits (msds) of the partial remainder and independent of the divisor. The proposed algorithm is faster than previously proposed radix 4 and radix 2 division algorithms, which require at least four digits of the partial remainder to be observed to determine a quotient digit. The speedup is achieved at cost of increase in area