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[docs] Clarify that Float16 is supported natively when possible #57725

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merged 4 commits into from
Mar 15, 2025
Merged

[docs] Clarify that Float16 is supported natively when possible #57725

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174531d
[docs] Clarify that Float16 is supported natively when possible
giordano Mar 11, 2025
f8512be
[docs] Add reference to `-fexcess-precision=standard` flag
giordano Mar 12, 2025
2b4105b
Further clarify implementation details of `Float16`
giordano Mar 12, 2025
f07fb35
Update doc/src/manual/integers-and-floating-point-numbers.md
giordano Mar 13, 2025
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4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions doc/src/manual/integers-and-floating-point-numbers.md
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Expand Up @@ -334,8 +334,8 @@ julia> typeof(x)
Float64
```

Half-precision floating-point numbers are also supported ([`Float16`](@ref)), but they are
implemented in software and use [`Float32`](@ref) for calculations.
Half-precision floating-point numbers are also supported ([`Float16`](@ref)) on all platforms, with native instructions used on hardware which supports this number format. Otherwise, operations are implemented in software, and use [`Float32`](@ref) for intermediate calculations.
As an internal implementation detail, this is achieved under the hood by using LLVM's [`half`](https://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#half-precision-floating-point-intrinsics) type, which behaves similarly to what the GCC [`-fexcess-precision=16`](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html#index-fexcess-precision) flag does for C/C++ code.

```jldoctest
julia> sizeof(Float16(4.))
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