Accuracy
Computer numbers have limited size => limited precision.
Rounding with Guard, Round bits
- Example: 2.56 x 100 + 2.34 x 102, using 3 significant digits
- Result: 2.3656 x 100
- Round: 2.37 x 100
- Without guard bits, result: 2.36 x 100
- Error of 1 Unit in the Last Place
Why 2 bits?
- Product could have leading 0, so shift left when normalizing