The IEEE Standard 754 defines how computers deal with decimal numbers. The standard defines a floating point operator, and while there are a number of versions of the standard, incuding:

• half precision, defined in 16 bits

• single precision where the number is 32 bits long

• double precision, a number defined in 64 bits

We will look at a 32-bit, Single Precision floating point number. Singles always have the same structure

Below is a short summary of floats.