BFloat16 Deep Dive: ARM Brings BF16 Deep Learning Data Format to ARMv8-A

Credit: IntelARM will be adding BFloat16 support in the next revision of the ARMv8-A architecture under its Project Trillium ML platform. It marks a new major milestone in the widespread adoption of the young data format that is taking the deep learning community by storm. It might seem obvious, but one of the fundamental problems you would encounter if you would want to build a computer chip from scratch follows: how do you represent numbers? For integers, the solution is simple enough: use the binary equivalent of the decimal number. Rational numbers, never mind irrational numbers, need a bit more care, however.