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From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) : [ foldoc ]
floating-point accelerator
(FPA) Additional hardware to perform functions on
floating-point numbers such as addition, multiplication,
logarithms, exponentials, trigonometric functions and various
kinds of rounding and error detection. A floating-point
accelerator often functions as a co-processor to the CPU.
The term "floating-point accelerator" suggests a physically
larger system, often an extra circuit board, whereas a
"floating-point unit" is probably a single chip or even part
of a chip.
(1994-12-01)