I do not think that Floating Point Units deal with Trigometric functions. Such functions are usually in a software library and use geometric series for evaluation. The evaluaton may be done using an FPU. Some FPU's implement square root I think!
Rjstott
- Some FPUs do trigonometric functions. For example, the 80387 has FSIN, FCOS, FSINCOS, FPTAN and FPATAN instructions. --Zundark, 2002 Jan 30
- You are right about using series for evaluation and the square root but the 68881/68882 FPU, for instance, designed for the 68xxxx family of processors, include cos, sin, atan in microcode. When the FPU functions were integrated in the 68040, trigonometric functions were emulated, though. OprgaG
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