Limited-Precision Stochastic Rounding

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Arar, El-Mehdi El, Fasi, Massimiliano, Filip, Silviu-Ioan, Mikaitis, Mantas
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Arar, El-Mehdi El
Fasi, Massimiliano
Filip, Silviu-Ioan
Mikaitis, Mantas
author_facet Arar, El-Mehdi El
Fasi, Massimiliano
Filip, Silviu-Ioan
Mikaitis, Mantas
contents Stochastic rounding (SR) is a probabilistic method used to round numbers to floating-point and fixed-point representations. In length $n$ summation, the worst-case error of SR grows as $\sqrt{n}$ with high probability, unlike for standard modes, like round-to-nearest (RN), which grows as $n$. For this reason, the former is increasingly employed in large-scale, low-precision computations as an RN alternative. Additionally, SR alleviates stagnation, whereby relatively small summands are completely rounded off and do not contribute to the sum. We provide an update to [Croci et al., Roy. Soc. Open Sci. 9.3 (2022), pp. 1-25], a survey which discusses the development and use of SR between 1949 and 2022, citing over 100 references. Since then, there has been a surge of new research, and this update covers almost four years of further progress in applying, analysing, and implementing SR. Our main focus is limited-precision stochastic rounding, a new variant that fixes the precision of the random numbers used. We provide insights into industrial and numerical analysis activities surrounding SR, highlighting the next possible steps in making this rounding mode more widely available in hardware.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_06060
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Limited-Precision Stochastic Rounding
Arar, El-Mehdi El
Fasi, Massimiliano
Filip, Silviu-Ioan
Mikaitis, Mantas
Numerical Analysis
Stochastic rounding (SR) is a probabilistic method used to round numbers to floating-point and fixed-point representations. In length $n$ summation, the worst-case error of SR grows as $\sqrt{n}$ with high probability, unlike for standard modes, like round-to-nearest (RN), which grows as $n$. For this reason, the former is increasingly employed in large-scale, low-precision computations as an RN alternative. Additionally, SR alleviates stagnation, whereby relatively small summands are completely rounded off and do not contribute to the sum. We provide an update to [Croci et al., Roy. Soc. Open Sci. 9.3 (2022), pp. 1-25], a survey which discusses the development and use of SR between 1949 and 2022, citing over 100 references. Since then, there has been a surge of new research, and this update covers almost four years of further progress in applying, analysing, and implementing SR. Our main focus is limited-precision stochastic rounding, a new variant that fixes the precision of the random numbers used. We provide insights into industrial and numerical analysis activities surrounding SR, highlighting the next possible steps in making this rounding mode more widely available in hardware.
title Limited-Precision Stochastic Rounding
topic Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06060